This idea sort of came to me as I was re-watching the ending scene of 'Painless,' earlier today. Some of it towards the end is pretty cheesy... and the whole entire thing is pretty much fluffy as it gets. But hopefully it's not too horrendous. Also, thank you to everyone who favorited/reviewed my first story 'There's a Wall,' it really meant a lot to me as I'm still really new to this and sometimes I have no idea what I'm doing :P

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

Hotch was frustrated. Actually, frustrated didn't begin to cover what Hotch was feeling at the moment.

It had been almost two weeks since the incident with Jack and the Paul boy from school. After Hotch had talked to Jack about it, letting the little boy know he wasn't alone (as Prentiss suggested) he hadn't noticed anymore behavior from Jack suggesting that anyone was teasing him at school. Hotch had thought that since he had told Jack he could come to him, that Jack wouldn't worry anymore.

He should have known better. If Jack was anything like Hotch- which of course, he was- then the young boy would still manage to try to handle everything on his own just like his daddy would.

It wasn't until now that Hotch realized the Paul ordeal had not yet ended. Hotch was helping Jack with his math homework as he usually did when he was home to do so. At one point, Jack accidentally knocked his folder off the dining room table where the two often did homework, sending papers flying all over the floor. The almost-seven-year-old boy practically flew out of his chair, hurrying to pick up all the paper. Jack wasn't very fond of cleaning in general, and trying to clean up things this quickly was unheard of for him. Hotch stood, then proceeded to help Jack with the mess.

"I can do it, Daddy," Jack said quickly, dropping papers as he tried to pick up more than he could hold in his little arms.

"It's okay, Buddy. Let me help," he said, picking up the remaining papers, straightening them out on the table.

Then, Hotch noticed he had a copy the homework sheet he and Jack had just been working on in his hands. However, this sheet donned Paul's name atop the paper, rather than Jack's. Confused, Hotch continued shuffling through, noticing a similar case with the science, social studies, and reading assignment sheets for the week as well.

He then turned to Jack, who by now knew he had been caught, and was sitting back in his chair at the table, swinging his feet and looking at the ground.

"Jack," Hotch said softly. "Why do you have all of Paul's homework papers?" He asked, completely unsure of how to bring up this topic.

The small boy said nothing, just continued looking down and swinging his feet. Hotch sighed internally.

"You're not in trouble, Buddy. You just need to tell me the truth, okay?" Hotch tried again, to no avail.

Unsure of what else to do, he put all of the papers back into Jack's folder, thankful everything else was already complete.

"Well, since you won't talk to me, why don't you go on up to your room. I'll come in there in a few minutes to see if maybe you're ready to talk then, alright?" He said, mentally crossing his fingers in hopes Jack would listen.

"'Kay Daddy," Jack said sadly, as he slid off the chair and quietly walked to his room, sagging his shoulders the whole way.

Hotch sighed out loud now, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew it was wrong in every aspect to simply dislike a child, but he really didn't like Paul right now. He hadn't since he found out Paul was teasing Jack. He wasn't sure of course by this point if Jack was voluntarily doing Paul's homework or if Paul was making Jack do it, but either way he knew this had to end.

Reaching for the phone, he called the only person he knew to call for advice.

She answered on the fourth ring. "Prentiss," she said, she sounded rushed, like maybe she'd been doing something and the phone ringing had interrupted her.

"Oh, um, it's Hotch. Are you busy?" he asked casually.

"No, not at all. I was just in another room and had to run around like a crazy person trying to find my phone," she said.

"Alright, well..." he started not really sure what to say. "Jack has... well no, okay. We have a problem," he decided on finally.

"A problem?" Emily questioned. "What kind of problem? Are you alright?" she asked with worry in her voice.

"It's that Paul kid again," Hotch said.

"Oh no," Emily sympathized. "He's still picking on Jack?" she asked sadly.

"I don't know. I found all of Paul's homework papers in Jack's folder today. I just assumed in some way Jack was doing Paul's homework for him. Jack wouldn't talk to me about it... and then I just called you," he explained.

Emily didn't say anything for a moment, and Hotch had thought maybe she hung up, but then she said "Could I maybe come talk to him?" she said almost timidly. "I know you're his Dad... but I have experience with being teased. New kids are always the target. Maybe I could relate to him? I know it's a different situation, but I still know how he feels. I'm not trying to undermine your authority or say you're a horrible father but-" Hotch cut off her rambling by saying,

"I think that's a good idea, actually. Maybe once he sees there are other people around him who he's not related to who care about him, he'll start opening up more," Hotch agreed, desperate to end this whole Paul situation.

"Okay," Emily said simply.

"Can you come tonight?" Hotch asked. "Don't feel obligated, I was just wondering." He added quickly.

"Of course I can. I'll be there shortly, okay?"

"Alright," Hotch agreed, a wave of relief washing over him.

"And Emily?" he added.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Thank you," he said sincerely.

"Anytime," she said with an equal amount of sincerity.

The two hung up, and Hotch put away all of Jack's school items before making his way into the little boy's room, where he found Jack sitting quietly on the bed looking at a book, but not reading it.

"Hey, Buddy," Hotch said, seating himself at the foot of the bed. "What'cha doing?"

"Nothin'," Jack said quietly.

Hotch put an arm around Jack's shoulders. "Do you remember Miss Emily from work?" He asked Jack.

"Uh-huh," Jack said, lifting his head to look at his father. "She came over sometimes before... and she took me to the park once!" he said with a bit of excitement, recalling the times Emily had reached out to the Hotchner boys surrounding Haley's death, and before Doyle.

"That's right, she did." Hotch said nodding his head. "Guess what?"

"What Daddy?"

"Miss Emily's going to come over for a little while in a few minutes. That okay with you?"

"Miss Em'ly is coming here?" Jack said with much more perkiness than previously.

"Yup," Hotch said, smiling at Jack's enthusiasm. "She's got a story to tell you."

"Okay! When will she get here?"

"In a few minutes," Hotch told him.

Jack spent the next ten minutes cleaning up his room, even though it wasn't really that messy to begin with as Hotch made sure Jack kept it relatively tidy. Then, the doorbell rang.

"Miss Em'ly's here! Miss Em'ly's here!" Jack shouted, running to the door.

"Wait Jack!" Hotch yelled from another room to the overly excited little boy. "Don't open the door without Daddy, even if you think it's someone you know," he reminded Jack.

"Sorry," Jack said quickly. "Hold on Miss Em'ly! Daddy isn't at the door yet!" Jack yelled. Emily laughed from the other side of the door.

A few seconds later Hotch reached the front door, where he opened it. Emily stood there, smiling at the two Hotchner boys. Hotch would tell she'd gotten ready in a hurry. Her hair was up like she would have worn it if she were catching an UnSub. However, the flak jacket and regular clothes were replaced with lose black yoga pants, a yellow t-shirt that had to be something Emily had owned since college, a black jacket, and gray Nike tennis shoes.

"Miss Em'ly!" Jack said excitedly, throwing his arms around her, he was barely tall enough to wrap his arms around her middle, so he resorted to standing on his tiptoes.

"Jack!" Emily replied with just as much enthusiasm, but instead, she picked the little boy up to hug him. "How are you?" she asked.

"Good. Daddy said you were coming so I cleaned my room! You haven't been here in a long time, Miss Em'ly." he said seriously, giving her what could only be described as a 'Hotch glare.'

Emily held back a laugh, biting her lip. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she told him. "Maybe if it's okay with your Daddy, we can start spending more time together," she told him, glancing a look at Hotch, who was smiling. "But," she added. "I'm here now, so will you show me your room you cleaned for me?" she asked, putting Jack down on the ground.

"Okay, follow me!" he said simply, grabbing Emily's hand and leading her to his room.

"Wow!" Emily said when they walked in. "You did such a good job!" She said seriously. Everything was straight, everything was put away, the bed was made up rather messily, so Emily knew Jack had done it alone. It was probably the sweetest thing in the world in Emily's book.

"Thanks," Jack said happily. "You can sit on my bed. Daddy said you had stories!"

"Well thank you, you're such a gentleman," Emily said, sitting down on Jack's bed. Jack followed her, sitting as close to her as he possibly could without directly sitting on her lap. Emily smiled, realizing what he was doing, and carefully she pulled him up into her lap as she slid back more onto the bed. Jack turned sideways so he could see Emily's face as she began talking.

"Your Daddy told me what happened to you a couple of weeks ago at school," Emily said, acting as if she had no knowledge whatsoever of the homework incident.

"You mean Paul?" Jack asked.

"Mhm," Emily agreed, slowly rocking Jack back and forth. "And him telling me about you getting teased reminded me of a story I wanted to tell you,"

"About what?"

"About me," Emily said. "When I was a little girl, my mother had a really, really important job. But, because of her job, we had to move around to different countries a lot. Sometimes we would be in one place for a couple of months, and then have to move again," she explained.

"That doesn't sound like fun. I didn't like moving when Daddy got this new apartment." He told her.

"Moving's never fun, huh?" Emily asked, to which Jack shook his head. "Well, anyway, when you move around as much as we did, it's hard to make new friends because you're always the new kid. Have you ever had any new kids come to your class?" she asked.

"Yeah! Only one last year. Some people were mean to him, but I thought he was nice," Jack said.

"That's good that you were nice to him, honey. But anyway, a lot of people were mean to me. They made fun of how I talked, what I looked like, and how I dressed. It used to make me so angry. One time I hid under my bed every morning for months when I was about your age, because I didn't want to go to school," she told him.

"That's sad," Jack commented.

"Yeah, a little," she agreed. "But this story has a happy ending," she promised the boy, who gave her a hopeful look. "One day, I finally found some friends. Real friends. Of course it took time for us to all get to know each other, but we all soon became friends. I knew I could come to them for anything, and they knew they could come to me. And you know what I realized?"

"What?" Jack asked, playing with the hem of shirt.

"That sometimes, people might tease you or make fun of you or make you mad. But as long as you've got your friends, you'll be okay. People who don't take the time to appreciate you for who you are, aren't worth your time." She tried explaining, hoping she was making sense.

"I have a lot of friends at school," Jack said. "Paul is the only one who's mean," he informed the brunette woman.

"And he's missing out on knowing a really great kid," Emily said, lightly pinching Jack's nose, causing him to laugh.

"Miss Em'ly?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you be my friend, too? Daddy is my best friend but I don't want him to be sad. He really worries a lot, you know. So sometimes I don't wanna tell him," he said.

"Oh, Jack," she breathed, running her fingers through his short sandy brown hair. "Your Daddy only worried because he loves you so much. He wants to know what's bothering you. But of course, I will be your friend. Any time you want to talk to someone a little bigger than the kids in your class, you can always come to me," she assured Jack.

He grinned at her. "Okay. Well," the boy started, sitting up more in Emily's lap. "Paul made fun of me because I messed up the game we played at recess one day. I kicked the ball but I ran the bases the wrong way," he shot her another toothy grin. "Everybody else thought it was funny, but Paul was mean. And then he kept talking about my Mommy," Emily closed her eyes at the mention of Haley. How dare that kid bring up something still so raw for Jack?

"Oh, honey," Emily sympathized.

"But it's okay because Daddy and I talk to Mommy sometimes and I know she's not mad. It made me really sad when he kept talking about her and he said things that wasn't true," he said, Emily smiled at his improper grammar. "So he told me that he would stop if I did his homework for him. So after Daddy and me finish mine, I copy it to Paul's and the teacher never notices," he confided in Emily.

"Paul is not a nice boy, Jack," she said. "It's not fair for you to have to do the homework twice. Now because I'm your friend, I won't tell your Daddy what you said. But you really need to tell him, okay? He can fix it so you don't have to worry about Paul ever again. Okay?" Emily said soothingly.

"Okay, Ms. Em'ly. I'll tell him tomorrow. I'm tired," he said as he relaxed more into Emily's side, his eyelids closing involuntarily. Emily smiled at how adorable he was, and picked him up and brought him out to the living room where Hotch was sitting on the couch with the television on, but Emily knew he wasn't paying attention to it.

"Hey," she said softly. "We got a tired six-year-old on aisle four," she joked, earning a small laugh from Hotch, and a smile from Jack who replied sleepily,

"I'm almost seven!"

This time Hotch and Emily shared a laugh. Hotch reached out to take Jack from Emily's arms.

"Can Miss Em'ly tuck me in?" Jack asked.

Hotch looked to Emily who nodded confirming that she would tuck him in.

"Yeah, Buddy," Hotch agreed, taking Jack to his room where he helped him get into his pajamas. After Jack was laying down, he motioned for Emily to enter the room. She had been waiting outside Jack's door.

"Goodnight, Jack," Hotch said, kissing the former's forehead.

"Love you Daddy," Jack mumbled.

Hotch left the room, and Emily crept over to the bed, where she pulled the covers up to Jack's neck, tucking the covers around him.

"You look like a cocoon!" she told him smiling.

"I'll be a butterfly in the morning," he told her.

"You bet, sweetie." Emily agreed. "Goodnight, honey. I had a nice time with you tonight. You feeling a little bit better?" she asked, brushing his hair back.

Jack nodded. "Thank you," he told her.

"Good," Emily agreed, kissing Jack's forehead. "Night, Jack,"

"Love you Emmy," he said, eyes closed, already half asleep. Emily froze for a minute. Jack loved her. He trusted her. Emily already knew that to an extent, but to hear the little boy saying he loved her out loud was scary for her, but she replied with "I love you too," and turned out the light, walking out of the room and down the hall to the front door.

"Wait," Hotch said as she went to grab the doorknob.

"Yeah?" she asked, turning to face him.

"Thank you, Emily. For coming out here tonight, for talking to Jack,"

"Oh, anytime. He told me everything. I told him I wouldn't tell you since he considers me a friend and he told me in confidence. But he told me he would tell you tomorrow... is that alright?" she asked, shuffling her feet, afraid she'd made a mistake.

"That's okay. I'm just glad he told someone. I know he was tired when you brought him out to me, but as his Dad I could just tell a difference in him," he told her. Emily let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"Well, I'm glad I could help," she said. "But my job's done here. You get some rest, okay?"

"Hold on," Hotch said, taking a step closer to her. "I wasn't done. I want to thank you for loving him, too,"

"You heard that?" Emily almost whispered. "Is it- is it okay I told him I loved him too? I didn't know what to say," Hotch had heard everything she and Jack said as she tucked him in. When he realized how much trust Jack put into Emily, and how much care and concern Emily showed for him, he began to realize that maybe he trusted Emily and may honestly love her.

"It's perfectly fine. He trusts you... and so do I," he said, taking yet another step closer to her. She bit her lip as she looked up from her shoes to look Hotch in the eye.

"I trust you too," she told him sincerely. Neither of them knew how it happened, but somehow their faces were now inches apart.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Mhm," she agreed. Then it happened. Their lips were locked together, they were kissing. Neither one of them pulled away, but instead, prolonged it. Eventually, they had to break apart.

"Wow," Emily breathed as she opened her eyes. "Wow..." she repeated louder.

"I'm sorry," Hotch said. "Was that too- did I- are you-" he struggled to find the words, but Emily pressed her lips to his again for a second round of kissing.

When they broke apart this time, she said "You did nothing wrong. I promise,"

"What does this make us?" Hotch asked.

"Whatever we want," she told him simply. "It's like... it's like when a butterfly comes out of its cocoon. It's a new life, a new beginning," she told him, using the only example she could think of.

Hotch smiled, taking one of her hands in each of his. "Well, in that case, I can't think of anyone I'd rather start anew with except you," he said in a low voice.

"Me, either," Emily agreed, smiling.