ASTRA HART awoke with cushions sprawled across the floor, a bundled up mattress, a sick bucket next to her bed and a pounding headache which made her reach for said bucket, gagging as she sat up in her destroyed bed. What the fuck had happened last night? Was a question she kept wondering as she attempted to overcome her morning sickness, headed for the bathroom to freshen up. She knew for a fact that Morgan was in her apartment, he took her home, had she kissed him? Probably not, but she was a bit of a slutty drunk, so who knew?

So wrapped in her own thoughts, Astra Hart hadn't noticed she'd made a wrong turn to the bathroom ( she was still getting used to the apartment, even after all of her weeks there ) and found herself in her living room, where Derek Morgan stood, concern lacing his handsome features as he spoke hushed on the phone. "He what?" His body was hunched over, elbows rested against the kitchen island. "Yeah, yeah. I'll wake her up. No, don't call her. Don't- she's finally feeling comfortable, don't do that to her. I'll handle it." When he eventually hung up the phone and turned around, he noticed the blonde girl, her back lay tensely against the doorframe.

"What was all that about?" She inquired curiously, unable to deny the nervous feeling which slowly rose within her. He was definitely talking about her during that call.

"Nothing, there's-" He hesitated, "there's been an update on the case."  Unlike last night, his eyes bore straight into hers. Shift a little, she prayed, knowing how uncomfortable the truth made him, how lies came with such ease. Please. But his gaze didn't falter. "We need to go back to Quantico."

She nodded slowly, "do we have time for breakfast? I was going to make apology pancakes."

He stifled a laugh, "why would you need to apologise?"

Astra shrugged, her head still pounding, god did she need ibuprofen asap. "I probably said something I shouldn't have yesterday."

"Not at all, you were like you always are. The life of the party." He reassured her with a somewhat convincing smile, "but no, we'll make some food after, okay?" She wouldn't want to eat after she heard the news, he knew that much. But they had to go, now. 

The car ride was plagued with a silence that Astra thought had dissipated between the two, gone once were the uncomfortable days where they didn't know how to ease the tension between them. Or so she had thought. But from the moment they stepped into the car, until they exited the lift in Quantico, there was nothing other than an uncomfortable, uneasy atmosphere that couldn't be ignored.

Even when he dropped her off into the meeting room, an uncertainty remained. Something was terribly, horribly, uncharacteristically wrong.

Hands shaking, the sickness she had felt that morning rising up again into the back of her throat until she was sure she would projectile vomit all over the neatly-made room, Astra sat in front of Hotch, who's expression was the same as it always had been — that was reassuring, at least.

"Astra," he began with caution, not knowing how to break the news to her. Morgan had begged him not to say anything, but he was sure that she needed to know. She would've wanted to know.

"Hotch." She responded with just as much weariness. "I was told there was an update in the case?"

He nodded slowly, at least Morgan had given him a way in. "Yes, we've come into sufficient proof that we can use against Enzo. A warrant was put out this morning for his arrest."

"Thats great news, right?" Silence. A deafening,  pure, insurmountable silence that threatened to swallow her whole. "Why do you look like that?" She asked, his face had morphed into a look that she'd never seen on anyone, let alone the typically indifferent man. He looked almost sorry. 

"Well, he killed someone. That's how we. . . attained the evidence."

"Who?" The discernible look of sympathy told her everything she needed to know. "Fucking hell, Hotch, who did he kill?"

Astra Hart had never longed for the return of silence more than she did in that moment. If didn't say a word, then didn't that mean nothing really happened? That she could live her life in a blissful ignorance? Oh, if only Hotch had known what she was thinking, then he wouldn't have said his next words;

"Your grandpa."

authors note.
wild