This is a psychological experiment I was somehow coerced into doing. I'm supposed to write both Moon that breaks the night and Occupational Hazards to see how I cope with something so morbid and dark and balance it with something lighters, 'fluffier'. It was either this or medication, so I told my counselor I'd do this instead.
She checks in every once and a while, and she'll be reading through these every other time. So no matter what you people say about this fic (again and again and again) I'm not going to stop it. Because then I wouldn't be able to get the Okay for my Service Learning credits.
So there.
"Mama."
The weepy little voice had Emily up and off her seat on the couch in an instant; frowning in concern as she saw the little girl in a military tank top one size too big for her scrawny frame and shorts that bared her knobbly knees and bumps and bruises of a clumsy childhood. She was pouting crankily, pools of tears threatening to spill as she held up her left arm - the arm wrapped in a bright green cast from elbow to wrist.
The strap of her tank top drooped as she pouted harder at Emily and thrust out her bad arm. "Itchy!"
"Oh, sweetheart," Emily crooned in sympathy, scooping the girl into her arms and holding her gently as the little girl sniffled miserably into her neck. The girl was no older than five, six perhaps, with long pale limbs and wide eyes that were framed with almost prosthetically thick dark lashes. Her wide eyes and lank was obviously from her mother, as with her dark, dark hair that fell thick and spooling down her back.
Her mother, as you would have already deduced, was in fact the woman holding her. Held so tightly; pressed so close to her maker - there was no question whatsoever that Emily Prentiss had much say in the little girl's conception.
The only real difference between Emily and her child, was their eye color.
Where Emily's eyes were a deep, expressive brown, Chloe took both her parents' colors - one eye was the rich brown of Emily, and the other her Papa's vibrant blue.
Presently those peculiar eyes stared up at her mother's pretty face as Emily reached out to brush her hair behind an ear and placed a loving kiss to her forehead there.
Perhaps now at this point, you were wondering what was this girl's name, and what be of the left arm she'd broken that would eventually heal. Well, the answers were rather quite simple, actually.
Chloe Isabelle Prentiss liked to believe she was a human made of unbreakable steel. Tall trees and rickety chairs were no challenge to the girl. Unfortunately her grandmother's antique dressing table begged to differ - in a rather violent collapse.
Chloe broke its fall. In gratitude, it broke her arm.
Emily was merely glad the dresser hadn't somehow chosen to express its thanks in a hug.
"My poor baby," she crooned at Chloe, stroking the girl's hair and back like she used to when her baby was still a rather disobedient, constantly-hungry infant. But the baby was now a child; one even more so disobedient with a hunger worthy of a wildebeest. "Only another week until you take it off, sweetheart. I promise."
The young girl sniffled petulant, but seemed to accept her mother's placating. There wasn't much she could do otherwise - it wasn't as if she could take the thick papier mache of medical cast off her arm by herself. She'd tried.
Chloe pouted. "I wanna go play outside."
Emily tutted at her daughter, running her fingers through her hair idly. "It's too cold out, ma chère. And you know the doctor said to let it heal for another week before you start rough and tumbling all over again," she reminded the girl, but Chloe squirmed restlessly in her lap. There was never a time in the girl's short life that she'd been able to sit still for very long; Emily liked to blame it on her father's side of the family - she liked sitting in and reading when she was young.
"You said that last week," the girl whined, and wriggled until she could stare up at her mother's face in distress. Wide-eyed and pouting, lower lip quivering as she beseeched the woman with her sad, expressive face to release her into the open air for but an hour or so. "Mama, please? Pretty, pretty please?" Her lower lip trembled harder; tears gleamed in her eyes. "I promise I won't fight nobody, and I'll - I'll sit with you and I won't even go nowhere near the sand!"
Chloe then sighed in defeat, sagging in her mother's lap, staring down forlornly at Emily's shirt. "I just wanna go outside," she mumbled miserably, and promptly curled into a ball of resigned sadness achieved only by children.
It had been a little over a week since she'd been to the park, or anywhere Emily thought she might jostle her arm; she couldn't even go to school for the week because Mama was so afraid she'd break something else. It couldn't be helped - no matter how much Emily wanted to assure herself that Chloe was fine and that things were okay, she was still the woman's only child and she was still as terrified as she was the day she brought Chloe home from the hospital.
But seeing such dejected sadness on her daughter's face made Emily's heart clench in her chest, and guilt fill the space inside it. She had been keeping Chloe cooped up inside for her own selfish anxieties, placating the girl's ever-present restlessness with movies and arts and crafts and little games and distractions that the girl had eventually and inevitably grown weary of.
Honestly Emily was surprised she'd lasted as long as she had.
Perhaps Chloe hadn't broken just her arm that day; but the MRIs had shown clean and healthy brain activity.
Still it wasn't fair, and Emily knew she was putting her child through an unnecessary misery.
And so she knew amends were to be made.
"Baby," she soothed the girl gently, stroking her hair and pulling her close into a cuddle. Emily wrapped her arms tight around Chloe's lanky frame, tucking her feet in with her and rocking slightly on the couch as Chloe continued to pout. "I'm sorry I haven't been fun, I was just worried." She pressed a kiss to the back of Chloe's head and pressed her cheek there. "Tell you what; why don't you and I grab some of the bread Papa left out that's stale and hard and we'll go to the park and feed the duckies for a little bit?"
Emily smiled down at the girl when Chloe's eyes lit up hopefully; the heterochromic shades gleaming in the lighting of the day. "You like that?" She laughed when Chloe's head bobbed vigorously at her, chuckling breathlessly as Chloe's knee dug into her stomach from her excitement.
"Alright then, missy - grab your coat and bundle up and we'll go!"
Light and happy giggles danced in the autumn breeze, high and clear and unburdened as the girl in jeans and an oversized sweater jacket ran along the lake side, chasing pigeons and squirrels away. She slowed to a walk, ambling and uncoordinated in the way of a dreamer; plopping down onto the grass by the lake and peering up and out for her mother. Dark hair danced and spooled around her shoulders and sweater, kept in place in the two pigtails her mother had wrestled her into.
Curls were from her father's side of the family, and unruly they were by nature, if not purely to antagonize her mother.
"Mama, come sit here!" She waved at Emily eagerly, patting the ground beside her; it was a perfect distance from the lake and in excellent aim of the group of ducks beginning to gather curiously at her yelling. Experience told them it was nearing dinner time, and soon the lake was alive with quacks and squawks of a free meal.
The girl was wriggling in her seat at the sheer amount of ducks and geese now at the water's edge. Emily settled down beside her, eyeing the group of rather hostile looking foul warily; she wasn't a fan of the ducks and geese together. Alone, the ducks were mostly harmless and docile creatures, but when paired with the large, demanding brutes so innocent regal and elegant looking - Emily preferred them on a platter and not within reach of her alive.
"Honey, don't get too close, okay?" she warned the girl, but Chloe was already digging through the paper bag of bread to throw at them. Fear was a rather unknown concept to Chloe; she knew never to speak to strangers and to always hold Mama and Papa's hands when crossing the street, but other than the basic Stranger Danger issues she and Clyde had drilled into her since young, Chloe had very little reservations about her approach to life.
Hence, the broken arm.
"They're not mean, Mama; they're hungry birdies," Chloe told her mother simply, and began throwing the bread pieces into the lake for the ducks to eat. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, in Emily's point of view), Chloe was also a rather violent child, and the ducks were wise to shy away at a further distance to enjoy their meal lest they were to fall victim to her rather impressive right arm throw. Chloe let out a gasping giggle of delight when one piece of bread hit a goose on the beak. "You shouldna stole their bread, goose-face!"
Emily rolled her eyes to the heavens, unable to help the wry twitch of her mouth as she prayed under her breath that one day her child would learn to fear things and to also stop throwing bread at ducks with the intention of scaring them. But for now, she wrapped her hands around Chloe's narrow waist and kept her on dry land as she watched in amusement while the girl scared off the geese and startled the rest of the lake's inhabitants.
It wasn't too cold of a day; not damp and not biting, a pretty autumn day perfect for a day out, and Emily sighed quietly in contentment as she heard Chloe giggling amidst the loud quacks and honking of the lake foul. She smiled fondly, jostling Chloe gently with her hands wrapped around her narrow waist, smiling wider when her daughter turned to peer down at her with a toothy grin. It was nice to be outside, just the two of them; work hadn't been kind and time hadn't permitted her much time to spend with her child, and though she often found herself lamenting this more as of late, Emily knew she had no one to blame but herself.
There were monsters to hunt down and put away - all so they would never think to lay their hands on her child ever.
"Prentiss?"
The name, conditioned as she was to respond to it, made Emily jolt; whirling in surprise at the low baritone and pulling Chloe closer to her protectively. Her dark eyes found him effortlessly; obvious as he was, standing there five feet away from her, dressed down in a pair of old jeans and a henley sweater the shade of deep navy. He was peering at her curiously, surprise clear on his face but not unwelcome as he shifted his grip on the little boy at his side. The boy was young, barely out of his toddler years, and bearing a striking resemblance to the man holding him. Though his hair was fairer by a touch, and his smile sweet; his dark eyes and adorable dimples that peeked through his chubby cheeks were clearly those of his father.
Emily smiled politely at the man, eyes warm as she regarded the babbling boy. "Hotch," she greeted him, pushing herself to her feet and grasping Chloe's hand in hers as they faced the man. "What are you doing here?"
Hotch smiled slightly in greeting, glancing at the girl still throwing bread pieces at the ducks before smiling fully at the woman holding her hand. It was a surprise, of course, but the man found himself to be pleasantly surprised at her presence - and perhaps a little curiously so at the child she was holding. So he squeezed his son's hand, lifting the boy into his arms as Jack stared with childlike wonder at the girl who was scaring all the ducks with her food. "We came out for a walk," Hotch said, bouncing Jack slightly in his arms. The boy giggled, and Emily nearly found herself doing the same when a pair of matching dimples appeared on their cheeks.
"Jack likes to come see the ducks sometimes," he told her, smiling wider now in amusement as the girl Emily held in her arms finally tore her attention away to stare up at him. "It seems that someone else likes the ducks too."
Emily beamed at the boy, already in love with his sandy hair and miniature dimples; waving at him slightly. "Well hello there, Captain Jack." She grinned wider when the boy giggled - oblivious to the way his father's eyes darkened and flashed at her beatific grin and dimples. "Did you come over to feed the duckies too?"
Young Jack nodded his head vigorously, flapping an arm at the ducks as his father kept him in his arms and away from the feathered machines of feces and beaks. "Duck!" he cried eagerly, flailing in his father's arms until Hotch lowered him onto his feet. Jack wobbled precariously for a moment, finding his footing, before he lunged forward towards the ducks.
"Whoa there, mister!" Emily bent down, catching him with her knee as she bent down to stop him. She flashed Hotch a flustered, amused smile, frowning at the boy mock-seriously as she shook her head. "You can't get too close okay? It's not safe, and the duckies might run away."
Chloe peered curiously at the boy, tilting her head and observing them as she had with the ducks and geese - for this too was a creature quite unfamiliar to her. She glanced from the boy's chubby cheeks and toothy grin up to the tall man in front of them, tilting her head further to avoid the glare of the sunlight behind him.
Hotch looked down at Chloe, smiling warmly at the girl that looked startlingly like the woman holding his son; her bright eyes that probed into his face with a curious intensity. "Hello." He crouched down, flashing her a dimple as she continued to stare mutely. "What's your name?"
Her peculiar eyes trailed his face, as if committing it to memory, before she opened her mouth in a breath to speak. "Chloe," she said, and then thrust out her cast-covered arm at him proudly. "Look!"
Hotch raised an eyebrow, leaning back slightly to avoid a cast to the face; glancing at Emily for an explanation, but found that his son was too busy fussing in her arms for her to notice. And so he indulged the girl, taking her bright green cast in his hand gently and examining the cast covered in childlike drawings and scribbles. In one corner, he recognized Emily's handwriting. "What happened?" he asked her, tilting his head to read the words better.
"I broked it!" she told him proudly, puffing her chest out as if a broken limb was a medal of honor. "I climbeded the place Mama said I wasn't supposed to, and Mimi's table don't like climbing." She grinned, and Hotch knew then that she was definitely a Prentiss child. There was no denying her dark lashes and pretty mouth. She frowned then, lifting the broken arm in disappointment; her limb that failed her.
"Then my arm go to bed and I fell down."
Hotch stared. "You fell off of a table?"
Chloe nodded, pride clear on her face still. "I fall down, then Mimi's table fall down too, and then Mama scream like the time Papa and me put spiders in the bathroom." She wrinkled her nose then; the memory of her mother's shrill wail of her name ringing in her ear. They were fake spiders, floppity gooey ones that stuck to the walls - but Mama still put her in the corner. "And then Mama kick Papa in the no-no place."
She grinned wide, bursting into high giggles at the memory of her Papa crumbling to the floor after Emily had run screaming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. She did the same thing after Chloe fell; only she punched Clyde in the nose and then threatened to put a bullet through his brain if he ever taught her to stage dive off anything else.
Hotch whirled to Emily, finding the woman cringing at the girl's tale; holding Jack on her hip now to keep the boy from rushing off into the lake. Gingerly she eased his small fingers from her neckline, prying them from dropping the v-neck any lower as she flashed his father a sheepish smile.
"Hotch, this is my daughter Chloe - otherwise known as Evel Knievel the Second."
It took a moment, him staring at her, and then his brow twitched and he looked back down at the girl, mouth curling into a wry smirk. "Charmed," he drawled, and shook her good hand gently. When he straightened on his feet, he huffed, propping his hands on his hips as he regarded them in a dramatically serious frown. "Well, Miss Knievel, it seems that you've done enough damage to yourself for now; maybe after we finish feeding the ducks - scaring them, I mean, sorry - you might like to join us for ice-cream."
Chloe's eyes grew wide, as did her mother's.
"Oh, sir," Emily stuttered, glancing from the boy sucking his thumb in her arms and the girl bouncing on her feet beside her. "I don't want to get in the way of your plans with Jack -."
Chloe spun around to her mother, bouncing and hopping, wriggling as if she desperately needed the bathroom as she pleaded with Emily to agree. "Ice-cream, Mama, he wants to get us ice-cream!" She stared up at the woman incredulously. How was her mother not giving her consent already?
Mama loved ice-cream!
Emily flushed, shifting Jack on her hip as the boy also began to ask for the frozen confectionery. He was three years old and little, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a cup of vanilla and strawberry ice-cream. "Hush, Chloe, you know it's rude to shout," she chided the girl, but both Hotch and Chloe knew it for the diversionary tactic it was.
The last thing she wanted really was to invade on the father-son time she knew he cherished more than anything in the world. After all, she had helped him settle into the confidence of handling Jack on his own; something that suddenly made so much sense to the man now as he stared down at the little girl who had her mother's pale skin and dark hair and pretty smile.
She was new to the team, but something about her had always seemed to...gravitate him towards her. Perhaps it was because they were always so...similar; not just their coloring and length of thought, but their wavelengths always seemed to...mesh.
He waved the woman's protest aside, smiling lopsidedly at her as he glanced down to the little girl bouncing eagerly between them. Their eyes met again, and he held her gaze for a speaking moment before he reached out with a hand, open and inviting. "Come on, Prentiss - one ice-cream cone won't hurt you."
When she eyed him dubiously, Hotch smirked and waggled his fingers at her. "I don't bite, Prentiss."
Somehow, Emily huffed to herself, as she reluctantly took a step towards her Unit Chief, watching Hotch take Chloe in hand as she lifted Jack higher on her hip. I seriously doubt that.
The reason why I chose this particular fic is because of all the others, this was the one most planned out, comparatively. It's easier to write and it's lighter in theme (for now) because it lets me experiment a lot with Jack and Haley and Hotch's relationship with them. At the same time, I get to do that with Emily and Clyde, and then combine all of those together with Chloe.