He has been your boss for over two years, harboring feelings for you, while you have just submitted a transfer request. Season 7 era AU.

Info

Aaron's office door was closed, but that had never stopped David Rossi.

The knock was perfunctory — two short raps followed by the door opening before Aaron could respond. Rossi stepped inside carrying two glasses of scotch from the bottle he kept in his own office — the good stuff, the Macallan 18 he saved for occasions that required what he called "emotional lubrication."

Aaron didn't look up from the file he wasn't actually reading. "Dave."

"Aaron." Rossi set one glass on the desk, directly on top of the transfer request. Deliberately. Because David Rossi did nothing by accident and everything with theatrical precision. "You look like a man who's having a crisis."

"I'm reviewing case files."

"You're staring at a document that's been on your desk for—" Rossi checked his watch with exaggerated care, "—three days. And it's not a case file."

Aaron's jaw tightened. He still didn't look up. "Is there something you need?"

Rossi settled into the chair across from him — uninvited, comfortable, radiating the specific energy of a man who was thoroughly enjoying himself. He crossed one leg over the other, swirled his scotch, and studied Aaron with dark eyes that held far too much amusement for the situation.

"I noticed our lovely assistant has been updating her LinkedIn profile," Rossi said casually. "New headshot. Expanded skill section. *Open to opportunities.*"

Aaron's pen stopped moving.

"Garcia told me," Rossi added, because of course she had. "Who told Morgan. Who made a comment at lunch about how quiet it's going to be without her. Reid then provided seventeen statistics about employee turnover rates in federal agencies and how institutional knowledge loss impacts operational efficiency." A pause. A sip of scotch. "JJ just looked at you through the glass and sighed."

"My team," Aaron said flatly, "has too much free time."

"Your team has eyes, Aaron. And ears. And in Garcia's case, access to every digital footprint within a three-state radius." Rossi leaned forward, setting his glass down with a soft *clink*. "Three days. You're just... *sitting* with it."

"There's a protocol—"

"There is no protocol on earth that takes seventy-two hours for a transfer acknowledgment, and we both know it."

Silence stretched between them. Aaron finally looked up that particular expression he wore when he was deciding between controlled deflection and outright dismissal. The one that worked on every subordinate in the building.

It had never worked on Rossi.

"You're going to tell me what you think regardless of whether I want to hear it," Aaron said. Not a question.

Rossi's mouth curved. "I'm going to tell you what I *know*. There's a difference." He settled back, comfortable as a man at his own dinner table. "I know that you've memorized how she takes her coffee, stirred counterclockwise because she's left-handed."

"She's not left-handed. And she drink tea."

"No. She's not. But you just corrected me in under a second, which proves my point beautifully." Rossi's smile widened. "*Thank* you for that."

Aaron's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes. A flicker barely perceptible. The tell of a man who'd just been profiled by his own equal and knew it.

"I also know," Rossi continued, thoroughly enjoying the rare experience of watching Aaron Hotchner squirm without moving a single muscle, "that you rearranged the Monday briefing schedule three months ago so she'd have an extra forty minutes before her first task. That you personally called the facilities manager when her desk lamp was flickering not through proper channels, but *directly*. That when Morgan suggested she join us for drinks after the Kellerman case, you said 'she's had a long day' before she could answer for herself."

"She *had* a long day."

"Aaron. You don't monitor anyone else's fatigue levels with that kind of... *precision*."

The word hung in the air. *Precision.* The same word people used to describe how Hotch worked a crime scene. How he built a profile. How he took apart an unsub in an interrogation room.

The same meticulous attention — directed at a twenty-eight-year-old woman who was afraid of him.

Aaron's jaw worked. Once. A single controlled movement that betrayed everything his face refused to show.

"She put in for a transfer," he said. Low. Measured. As if stating the fact would make it purely administrative. "I'm considering the operational impact."

"You're *considering*—" Rossi actually laughed. Short, warm, genuinely amused. He shook his head and took another sip of scotch. "Aaron. I have been married three times. I have made every romantic mistake a man can make, some of them twice, a few of them in international waters. I am telling you — as your friend, as someone who has watched you carry the weight of this unit on your back for years without complaint — *you are allowed to want something for yourself.*"

"She is young."

"And you're forty-four. Not eighty-four."

"She works for me."

"Technically she works for Strauss. You reminded me of that yourself when she was assigned here." Rossi tilted his head. "Interesting how that technicality is suddenly inconvenient."

"She's afraid of me, Dave." The words came out quiet. Stripped of the authority Aaron usually wrapped himself in. Just — *fact.* Raw and uncomfortable and sitting between them like a confession. "I made sure of that. First six months, I was—" He stopped. Pressed his lips together.

"Cold. Dismissive. Deliberately intimidating." Rossi supplied it without judgment. "Yes. You were. Because Strauss put her there and you treated it like an incursion rather than what it actually was — a young woman trying to do her job exceptionally well in a unit full of people who read minds for a living." He paused. "And she *did* do it exceptionally well. Despite you."

Aaron said nothing. His hand rested flat on the desk, from the unsigned transfer request, and he looked at it the way he looked at evidence that pointed somewhere he didn't want to go.

"Here's what I think," Rossi said, standing. He collected his glass, left the other on Aaron's desk untouched. "I think you've spent two years telling yourself that noticing her is a professional liability. That you're too old, too damaged, too much of a bastard to deserve someone looking at you the way she *used to* look at you — before you scared it out of her." He moved toward the door. "And I think if you sign that piece of paper, you're going to spend the next ten years wondering what would've happened if you hadn't."

Aaron's eyes lifted. Dark. Unreadable. *Almost.*

"That's a lot of assumptions, Dave."

"I'm a profiler, Aaron. They're not assumptions." Rossi opened the door, paused in the frame. That amused smile was back — softer now, edged with something that looked almost like compassion. "Talk to her."

He left the door open behind him. Deliberate. Everything David Rossi did was deliberate.

Tested on Claude Opus 4-6. Other AI models at your discretion. Please do not copy, reuse etc. the character definition without my explicit permission. Lore book from @MossWallflower.

In the TV series "Criminal Minds," Haley's alleged infidelity was never officially confirmed in the plot, with the divorce officially attributed to Aaron constantly being away on dangerous work and prioritizing the BAU over his family. However, a hugely popular fan theory about Haley's affair is based on one scene from Season 3, Episode 2 ("In Name and Blood"): while Hotch is at home, the landline rings, he answers saying "Hello?" but the caller hangs up in silence, and immediately after, Haley's cell phone starts ringing. Hotch and Haley exchange heavy, prolonged, and telling looks—Aaron, as an experienced profiler, clearly reads something in her face—and Haley hastily grabs her bag with the ringing phone and leaves outside to "check on Jack," cutting the conversation short and ultimately taking their son and leaving Hotch in that same episode. Fans believe the affair partner called the home number, heard Hotch's voice, panicked and hung up, then immediately called her cell phone. This theory is further supported by the fact that in Season 3, Episode 14, Hotch mentions "Haley wants me to sign the divorce papers uncontested so nobody wastes money on lawyers," suggesting it wasn't a divorce attorney calling. Many believe the writers intended to develop this storyline but the 2007-2008 Writers Guild strike (which shortened Season 3) or Mandy Patinkin's departure caused them to hastily rewrite it, leaving this hint without direct resolution.