Hotchniss One Shots

"Stargazing"

Emily wasn't quite sure how he managed to do it. He wasn't quite sure of it himself, but somehow Rossi had managed to get the entire team out to his place for dinner on Friday night. This time, Emily couldn't use her excuse to go shopping with Penelope and Jennifer, because both of them were going to his place as well. She couldn't back out of it now.

Especially after Aaron offered to bring her, after convincing Jessica into taking Jack for the night. She was surprised to hear that Jack was excited to go to Jessica's. He has recently become close with her five year old son, Winston.

XXX

Aaron called Emily five minutes prior to picking her up at her apartment. As took the elevator up to her floor, and knocked promptly on the door. Exactly six-thirty, he noticed, looking down at his watch.

Emily opened the door to find him wearing a simple navy button up and dress pants. She thought he looked good. The shirt made him look taller than he already was, at almost six inches taller than her.

"Hey, good to see you," he said, leaning down for a quick kiss. He observed the scent of her perfume instantly. It was slightly more expensive than usual, he noticed.

"You can't always mean that," she laughed, picking out a pair of shoes to go with her black, knee length dress. "You see me every day."

"I do though." He met her eyes when she stood back up after finding a pair of heels. "That's what I look forward to every morning."

She tucked a strand of straightened, dark hair out of her face. "You're in a good mood tonight."

He smiled. "Are you ready to go yet? I got here right on time and everything."

"Uh, give me one minute."

Aaron rolled his eyes and she walked down the hall back into the bathroom. One minute. Yeah, right.

XXX

Finally in the car, almost fifteen minutes later, Emily got a call from JJ, asking if they were on their way yet. Emily tried her best to keep her cool and tell her that they were two minutes away. She could say with confidence that Aaron and JJ were beginning to get on her nerves that night. She hadn't made them that late, after all.

XXX

Dinner at Rossi's went by as it usually did. It started with Penelope asking for a cooking lesson, and eventually led into Rossi turning into a home cooking show for the whole team to watch.

While the group of friends ate, they discussed Dave's current love life, and why he was living so lavishly with no one to share his prospects with. His response came the same as it usually did. He didn't want to commit. He never wanted to commit. Somewhat similar to Morgan, Emily noted.

Towards the end of the dinner, Rossi offered to give a tour of the backyard. Of course, they'd already seen it at JJ's wedding, but now it looked less formal. More like, well, a backyard.

While they walked towards the fire pit placed in the middle of a large granite slab, Rossi offered to start a fire. Of course, they came to see that it was actually Morgan who ended up starting the fire and kept it going into the night.

The team sat down on the surrounding couches and chairs. Reid sat down next to JJ on a pair of grey lawn chairs, while Penelope snuggled into Derek's side on a small, outdoor couch. Emily took a seat next to Aaron on the one opposite of Garcia and Morgan, and he subconsciously wrapped an arm around her shoulders, holding his beer in his opposite hand.

Rossi joyously exclaimed something in Italian when he found the dry firewood underneath a plastic tarp on the east side of his house, which he so fondly liked to call a mansion. He hummed to himself quietly as he walked back to the fir spit and tossed the wood inside, motioning for Derek to form the wood into a teepee like structure.

"Rossi, I thought we were guests in your home," Derek complained, removing his arm from Penelope's shoulders and kneeling in front of the metal pit.

"You work for your meal, Derek," Dave responded, pulling a lighter from his pocket.

Once the wood was in place, Derek sat back and watched as Rossi threw a piece of burning newspaper into the wood pile that eventually lit the former trees into flames.

Reid scooted his chair back significantly on the granite slab and took a moment to make sure that he wasn't about to knock over his Sprite can.

"What, pretty boy, no statistic for us?" Morgan asked with a chuckle, seeing as the whole team watched his actions.

"Well, if it's a statistic you're looking for, I could say-"

"Nah, I'm bored," JJ and Morgan said in unison.

"I was going to say that you should all look up. The sky is abnormally less cloudy today, which is surprisingly, considering the recent meteorological weather forecast, but taken into consideration, this was-"

"Reid, you're rambling again," Emily said from beside Aaron.

He pursed his lips and looked up at the sky. As did the rest of the team.

"Look, there's the Big Dipper!" Garcia pointed to the sky.

Everyone craned their necks to the side, trying to reach her perspective.

"Actually, that's Canis Major," Reid said quietly. Morgan glared at him. "What?!"

"You think you're so smart."

"Okay, ask me. Any constellation. Go."

Morgan scoffed, but pointed up the sky with an extended arm. "That big one, right there. What is it?"

"Orion."

"That one?" Morgan pointed to another one.

"Aries. Come on, give me something harder," Reid complained.

"You're making this up."

Aaron heard Emily scoff lightly at their childish behavior before leaning her head comfortably on his shoulder. He smiled and turned his head down to kiss the top of her head sweetly.

Emily smiled and closed her eyes. There was no one else she would rather be with that night than the people who were there with her right now. The people she loved.