VIOLENT DELIGHTS, aaron hotchner

my body, loved

January blurs into February, bringing Juliette new opportunities to progress past her idle lifestyle. After overcoming the embarrassment of the whole team knowing the repulsive details of her past, she carefully begins to form the relationships they've been trying at for almost a year.

She starts joining JJ and Morgan on runs through little-known trails in Quantico when Aaron's unavailable, making small talk like they haven't seen before. They learn of her contagious smiles when JJ brings up Henry, and do everything they can to keep each other laughing.

Juliette and Aaron spend most nights together, and although they prefer her larger townhouse, they end up spending most of their time in his apartment with Jack. Jack loves the attention, and Juliette relishes in every moment they spend watching movies or building legos.

Still without a Section Chief, Juliette helps Aaron with urgent paperwork at any chance she can get and forces him to bed after hours in his home office. She's hopeful this won't go on much longer, because he gets called in to an emergency meeting about the job at 5 in the morning.

Juliette drives Jack to school, waving off Aaron's guilt because she genuinely enjoys spending time with him. She drives straight to the office, arriving an hour earlier then the rest of the team in the hopes of saying a proper good morning to Aaron.

His door is shut when she enters the bullpen, but they briefly meet eyes through his window before she notices he's speaking with a man and sits at her desk without a word. She's barely working for twenty minutes before his door opens, and the men walk out and towards her desk.

She stands to meet them, as professional as ever when the man extends his hand. "This is Agent Mateo Cruz, he's our new Section Chief." Aaron introduces.

"Agent Leroux." She says, shaking his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine." Cruz smiles. "Strauss spoke very highly of you, I'm grateful you've been able to help with the workload in her absence."

She blushes at the thought of Aaron bragging about how much of the paperwork she's done, nodding to him. "It's the least I could do. I look forward to working with you."

When he finally leaves the bullpen, Juliette leans up to Aaron with a ghost of a smile and a longer kiss for being at work. Relaxed from how great her morning has been, she doesn't get annoyed when Morgan complains how he had to run alone that morning or when Garcia comes to her for French help.

Her day would have been even better if she was able to go home, but Hotch calls them to the round table for a case early in the afternoon. "An hour ago, this man was found wandering the streets of Baltimore before he collapsed. He's unconscious and has ligature marks on his wrist, it's impossible to tell how long he's been missing." He starts.

"Are those puncture wounds in the corner of his eyes?" JJ asks.

"Yes, an an MRI confirmed that fibers in his brain had been severed."

"He had a lobotomy?"

"There's hemorrhaging and forge in object splinters embedded behind his right eye, likely for whatever tool the UnSub used." Spencer says, looking up from his file. "The entry points in his eyes are from an outpatient-style traditional lobotomy. Less mess than drilling holes like Dahmer."

"Dahmer's method killed. This didn't" Morgan concludes. "He wanted his victim to survive."

"Well, lobotomies are considered—" Spencer starts, but he's interrupted by Anderson entering the room.

"Excuse me, Agent Hotchner? Agent Cruz is here."

Hotch waves him in, gesturing to the agent. "Everyone, this is our new section chief Agent Mateo Cruz. These are agents Blake—"