I'm working on a sequence of stories that belong together but still stand for themselves.

Thanks to REIDFANATIC for Beta Reading.

Criminal Minds is not mine.

Getting used

"Declan?" She called out as she closed the door behind her, turning the security system back on. She had made her way home as fast as possible, only stopping to pick up the pizza she had ordered before, but she was still late. It was his second weekend home in the six weeks since he had moved in. That fact didn't really help Emily with her guilty feelings. She had tried so hard to be back before he got out of classes, but although the case had been solved, a late Wyoming snowstorm had stopped them from flying back to D.C. The only choice had been to have Garcia pick him up from the bus station and make sure he settled in. She had no idea how JJ and Hotch went through that every case with their little ones waiting.

She threw her travelling bag in the corner next to the stairs before she turned into the kitchen to put the pizza down. When she made her way back through the dining room to her living room she found Sergio, who seemed to be mad at her as well for not feeding him. As she couldn't find Declan on this level of the house, she filled up Sergio's bowl and then headed upstairs. She could see the light underneath Declan's bedroom door.

She knocked gently, before opening the door. He was laying on his bed playing on his Wii. She really hadn't wanted him to have that in his bedroom, but since he wasn't home that often anyway, she supposed it didn't matter.

"Sorry I'm late. I got the pizza." He looked at her for the shortest moment, and then looked back at his game cursing himself for missing points. She sighed. She watched him for a while, but he didn't look up again. Finally she sighed again and turned on the threshold, closing the door behind her.

As she went back downstairs towards her kitchen, she considered for a moment calling one of her friends, but something told her that she had to figure the situation out by herself. She grabbed a slice of pizza eating a bite of it. Why were teenagers not delivered with some kind of instruction manual? She opened the fridge with her free hand snatching the ranch. That lovely stuff just made every pizza twice as good. After finishing her slice she had developed some kind of a plan.

With the box in one and the ranch in the other, she headed back upstairs, ignoring her self-made rule of not eating upstairs. She knocked and at least this time she got some annoyed sound as an answer.

"You would be the first boy I've met who isn't hungry." She made her way to the bed setting down the box of pizza and ranch.

"Are you one of those weird people eating pizza with ranch?" He eyed the bottle with a smirk growing on his lips.

"Are you one of those weird people, who think that is gross?" She countered jokingly as she took another slice adding ranch to it.

"There is nothing weird about people being normal."

She laughed. Maybe the night wasn't totally ruined yet.

"What are you playing?"

"Oh just some old game: Mario Cart."

"What is it about?" She looked at the screen seeing some kind of a race track.

"Are you serious?" He asked while chewing on his piece of pizza. She could see in his face that she was outdated but books just seemed more appealing to her.

"Well yeah. I'm a nerd, I think books are cool." She replied with a small smile.

"Well you choose your car and player and then you race the others. You should try it." Emily shot him a skeptical glance, but that only convinced him to hand over his controls.

"You hit this button to accelerate and then you move your hands to give directions." Before she could protest he had started the game for her, while eating his next slice of pizza. When she finally got her little cart back to the start line, the game told her that she had lost.

"Wow you are bad." Declan commented grinning widely. "Want to race me?"

"What you just want to win. But sure go ahead." Her ambition had set off and so she was not going to let him win. Of course he won anyway, but she wanted revenge.

They had played half of the night not paying much attention to bed time. She had enjoyed the fact too much that it finally seemed to work. Finally she had barely been able to keep her eyes open and he seemed the same way.

The next morning sadly came to fast. She had knowingly ignored the doorbell and the knocking coming from downstairs, but her phone was another problem.

"Gosh dangit." She reached for her cell, but it was not on her night stand where it was supposed to be. Her sleepiness was wiped away by her anger and she sat up searching the room for the phone. She had narrowed it down to the corner with her cloths as it stopped ringing.

"Too bad." She shrugged and had herself fall back on her bed. As she closed her eyes the sound of the ringtone reappeared. She struggled out of her bed, pulling half of her bedding behind her and began searching her jeans.

"This better be good." She answered to phone without paying much attention to the caller ID and not at least worried about offending the caller.

"Having a bad morning princess?" She could basically see his chuckle, but the headache spreading in the front of her head didn't improve her mood.

"What do you want Morgan?"

"I said I'd pick you up to go running in the morning. 5.30am that's what YOU insisted on. So it wouldn't steal of your time with Declan."

For the first time her eyes wandered to the clock, indeed it was 5.40am by now and she probably had him waiting in the cold for the last ten minutes. She sighed internally, grabbing a sweater before she headed downstairs.

"I'm on my way down." She said and hung up, before he had a chance to say something else. She pulled the wide sweater with the label from some European soccer club in the front over her head. As she passed the mirror she considered for a moment turning around and leaving Morgan outside. Her hair was a mess showing clearly that she had slept on the right side and her carefully applied makeup from the day before was a big mess around her eyes, only supported by the dark rings underneath them.

She opened the door with one hand, turning around before he got a chance to look at her face. Derek stepped inside with a grin on his lips. He was not sure yet what had pissed her off but it would probably be a funny story.

"I would offer you some of my coffee, but you quit." He called as he saw her disappearing into the kitchen.

"Not funny Derek Morgan." He followed her and found her on the small kitchen table rubbing on her messed up makeup.

"If I didn't know it better I would say you partied all night."

"Who said, I didn't?" She glanced at him. It might have been a teenage boy party, but it had taken most of the night. His eyebrows rose, curious what the story behind that statement was. He placed his take out coffee on the table, before he sat down. Of course he didn't miss her eyeing the steaming cup.

"You can have some. "

She shook her head, although her body could really use the caffeine. She had no idea how she was supposed to survive the day on three hours of sleep. Of course she did it all the time, but a case gave her the necessary adrenalin to make it through the day.

"Declan taught me how to play that game on his Wii."

Derek glanced at her not sure if she was serious. He knew that she did like games whenever she was in the mood for it, but he had not seen this coming.

"I tried to beat him and that took a while."

His laugh busted out before he could stop himself, earning him a killing glance.

"What game?"

"Mario Cart."

He kept the laughing down but his grin grew wider and she did her best on hating him for it.

"Just keep it down. You don't have to wake the whole house up." She let her head sink to the table resting it on her arms. He watched her as she closed her eyes. If the situation wouldn't have been so funny he would have felt sorry for her. After all the case hadn't given them too much time to sleep so he could see why she was tired.

"How about you take a nap and I have breakfast ready when you get back up?" His plan sounded good to her although breakfast for sure wouldn't help her to get in shape like the running would have.

"Okay." She murmured not moving at all.

"At least get on your couch. I need to be loud while cooking."

"Really?" She asked sarcastically, but got up to leave the room. "Don't wake Declan up with your noisiness." Eyes only half open she made her way down the hall to find the couch.

Against her expectations she fell back asleep. When she woke up the room was filled with the delicious smell of eggs and bacon. She opened her eyes staring at the wall on the other side of the room. At just this moment her life seemed so normal to her. A teenage boy sleeping upstairs and a man making breakfast in the kitchen for her, what more would she need? She sighed. If life was just that easy it would probably be no fun.

She swung her legs off the couch, just noticing the blanket that hadn't been there when she had fallen asleep. A small smile appeared on her lips. Yes she could get used to that. She kept the soft material wrapped around her and walked towards the kitchen. The table was filled with all kinds of good food.

"That was all in my fridge?" She joked as she moved towards the table.

"Actually no, I did some shopping while you were asleep. Your keys are back in their place." Emily glanced up from the table. Her mind wandered back to the thought she had had just after waking up. When had a normal life gotten so appealing?

"With all the women you dated, why did none of them drag you to the altar yet?" She asked with a small grin, as she sat down. She could see his eyes rolling as he put a glass of orange juice in front of her.

"Actually there is only a handful that got a breakfast like this."

"Really?" She asked with amusement as she began to fill her plate. Her conversation with JJ had come back to mind. She couldn't believe how right her friend's observation seemed to be, if she reflected them on her own thoughts.

"I found the game." Declan's voice stopped Derek from answering as well as interrupting Emily's thoughts. They both turned to the boy. "Emily you are up." His face lit up. "You could play with us. Derek said we could probably move the Wii into the living room, to the bigger screen."

Emily glanced from the teenager to her friend. Just now did she notice that the other plates had already been used.

"You two go ahead, I need food, a shower and new clothes in exactly that order." She had just noticed that she was still wearing the undershirt she had worn all day yesterday and the sweater she had grabbed was not exactly clean either.

Morgan grinned as he watched her load her plate with all the bacon that was left and most of the eggs. "We are going to set up the Wii in the living room then."

"Go for it." She said before biting into her first piece of bacon sighing in joy.