The Stars | Aaron Hotchner

Chapter 4: The Discovery

When you had started training with Aaron, you knew it wouldn't be long before someone figured out who you were, FBI job and all. Within the first week of introducing yourself to him, the BAU's technical analyst had found you and gave you a call as you were about to leave your office.

The first part of the call was indecipherable squeals, but after some time to calm down, you knew who it was by the bright tone she spoke with as Aaron had described his teammates to you once before.

-

Two Weeks Ago

"Is this Y/N L/N? The one dating my boss, Aaron Hotchner?"

You grinned, feeling her excitement through the phone. "I wouldn't call it dating, but yes, I am seeing him." You figured she would have another outburst and pulled the phone away from your ear as you heard the faint squeal start up again. When you couldn't hear her anymore, you held the phone against your ear. "May I ask how you found me? I knew your team was good, but not this good."

"Sure pumpkin! Wait, before I regale the tale, my name's Penelope Garcia, loyal and awesome technical analyst of the BAU. And! I have to put out there that if you break boss man's heart, I may or may not have to do something about it, sugar cakes. So please, be gentle with him, yeah?"

You nodded to yourself at the rhetorical question, appreciating the loyalty of Aaron's team and letting her continue without interruption.

"Well, it was more luck than investigation, since Hotch is pretty secretive about his love life and whatnot, but it started with our boy genius, Dr. Spencer Reid. So we had a case and he overheard Hotch talking to Rossi, David Rossi. He's like, our senior supervisor-slash-profiler-slash-author -- Well anyway, Hotch was talking to him about a bike ride and later that day, we found out Hotch was probably seeing someone. So I asked Reid to use his eidetic memory and his 187 IQ to see if he heard anything about her-- you-- when he recalled hearing 'Y/N' while the big cheese was talking about his bike ride, which also turned out to be your date.

"Then, we were waiting to find out your last name and we caught a break when Hotch left your business card on his desk, which the good doctor spotted when he went to drop off some paperwork. So! We had your full name and my magical fingers and bang bam presto! All we had to do was cross reference potential matches to places that one Aaron Hotchner had been and we found out you're one of the good guys, working at Quantico as a financial analyst.

"Obviously, I had to do some extra digging to make sure you were clean and didn't have any red flags-- it was squeaky clean and you were perfect, by the way-- but I'm sorry if you think I went too far or something."

You assured her that it was understandable, contemplating the information she just dumped on you. You knew your information was mostly public as you worked for the government, so that didn't concern you as much as the spreading knowledge of your personal relationship to "Hotch". As of now, three other people knew, and you had no idea how influential they could be in Aaron's decisions. He had spoken to David Rossi about you, but he hadn't mentioned you to the rest of the team yet, so you had to make sure Penelope and Spencer would keep a lid on it.

"Wow. That's, impressive." It was, truly, but you used the pause to gather your thoughts. "I can't wait to be officially introduced to you, but may I request that this stay between us? And Aaron of course, but he doesn't have to know that you know, you know? Everything between him and I is very new, and I don't want him to be teased about it and back out, you know?"

You heard the soft jangling of jewelry as she presumably nodded, but she verbally responded as she realized you couldn't see her. "Yes, yes of course! I hope everything works out, 'cause you make him happy. Like, really happy, and you know. He deserves it, after everything he's been through..."