Christmas Eve at 1178 Lilygrove Gate turned out to be very fun, and with each passing hour, Emily felt like her heart was going to overflow with love, simply because she loved her new family so much. After all these years of searching and hoping, and going halfway around the world, she'd come back home to find that her family had been right in front of her all along.

"What did you do for your Christmas Eve's when you were a kid, Emily?" Isobel asked as they, TJ, Sandy, Henry, and Michael sat together in the living room. "Since your mom's an ambassador, I mean?"

"In London and Rome, both, my parents would drag me along to Mass, and by the time that was done, it was off to the embassy for a very long, very formal dinner."

Isobel chuckled. "I don't think I'd ever have the patience to sit still that way if it wasn't fun."

On Emily's other side, TJ interjected, "Which is why, Emily, Izzy's been doing some form of dance class or ballet since she was old enough to support her own weight on her legs."

Emily looked back to Isobel, interest piqued. "Do you still dance?"

"Yep." Isobel nodded. "A week before we moved, I did my last performance with the Topeka Dance Company, and I had the leading role."

"What show?"

"Cinderella."

"And you were her?"

Again, Isobel nodded. "I was, and the year before that, I was the Sugar Plumb Fairy in The Nutcracker, and Odette in Swan Lake."

"Wow. That's amazing."

"Thanks." Isobel perked up at the praise. "I'm going to enroll in a dance class as soon as I can because dancing is my favorite thing, and I'm really good at it."

"I'll say, if you've been been Odette, the Sugar Plumb Fairy, and Cinderella in two years."

From her armchair beside the fire, Sandy called, "You know who else has a talent, Emily?"

She looked over at her. "Do tell."

"JJ does." she pointed to the piano. "See this?"

The musical instrument in question was a full black Steinway & Sons grand piano that looked old, but well-maintained.

"Yes. It's beautiful."

"It belonged to my mother, Agnes, and before her, it was her mother Alma's. My mother taught me to play on it, and I taught my baby sister."

"What's your sister's name?"

"Jade-Marie, and she lives with her family in Ontario. I'm going to visit her next month because she just had a baby."

This derailed Emily. "I beg your pardon?"

Sandy laughed. "Jade is my stepsister, and we're thirty years apart. I raised her after our parents died, and I think she and her husband are looking to come to the states with their kids."

"How many do they have?"

"Now, with baby Magnolia, they've got four kids—two grown sons and two little girls."

"And the baby's name is Magnolia? That's really cute."

TJ coughed pointedly. "Weren't we talking about the piano?"

"Right." Sandy nodded. "I taught JJ to play on this piano, since neither her brother nor her sister expressed interest."

"When did JJ get the piano?"

"I gave it to her as a wedding present. She still plays, and she can sing, too."

"Wow. I never knew that."

"I'm sure she'll teach Michael and the baby in time, but right now, she teaches Henry."

At the sound of his name, Henry looked up from his book and subsequently scanned the room, frowning.

TJ asked him, "What are you thinking, nephew?"

"Where are my mom and dad? I thought we were going to teach Aunt Emily how to play Find The Pickle!"

Before Emily could ask what Find The Pickle was, JJ and Will returned from the kitchen, where'd they'd been having a quick powwow.

"We've got some bad new and some good news." JJ said.

Emily winced. "What's the bad news?"

Will motioned towards the window which looked into the front yard. There was a steady snowfall that wasn't showing any signs of letting up.

"We just heard a broadcast that says it won't be turning into a blizzard, but that it's highly inadvisable to drive anywhere, let alone go outside before the plows come clear things in the morning." he explained. "This means that TJ and Isobel will be staying the night."

"Dibs on Izzzy!" blurted Henry before he could stop himself.

"Buddy," JJ said with a laugh. "You can't just call dibs on a person."

"You can't?"

"No—it's weird, they might have preferences for a different sleeping area."

Isobel merrily chimed in, "Then it's a good thing I don't! Henry is my buddy, and I would love to bunk with him!"

Extremely flattered, Henry put his book down and hugged his cousin.

"Hey," TJ said to his hosts. "If a sleepover is bad news, what's the good news?"

JJ winked. "There's no chance of losing power."

"Then that, as they say, is that. Is it time to play Find The Pickle?"

"Yes!"

Henry and Isobel promptly covered their eyes. Michael crawled from Emily's lap to Isobel's, and seeing what she and Henry were doing, he copied them.

Emily felt utterly perplexed. "What's with the Three Amigos?"

JJ walked over and handed her something. "I fetched this from the attic just before Will flagged me down to tell me about the crazy weather.

Now Emily was more confused than ever. "This is a pickle ornament?"

"We've been playing this game for as long as I can remember: the way it goes is that Will and I hide that ornament in the branches of the tree, and whoever finds it first gets an extra present from us."

Emily handed the ornament back. "Neat."

Sandy rose from her chair and held a hand out to her daughter, making a beckoning gesture. JJ handed her the ornament, curious about what was going to happen next.

"What's going to make this even more neat is that I am going to hide the pickle this year, and whoever finds it gets a full stocking of prizes from yours truly. Everyone good with that?"

There were zero objections, and Emily, JJ, and Will were soon covering their eyes, too.

While Sandy played with Michael to keep him occupied, the rest of the family searched high and low on the tree for the hidden ornament. In spite of an 'accidental' false alarm from Henry, Emily found the pickle, hiding behind the ornament that he had made for her.

"Here you go, sweetheart." Sandy handed her a bulging stocking decorated with snowflakes. "This is for you."

"Thanks!"

As Emily sat back on the couch to examine her prizes, Henry, Michael, and even Isobel moved in to watch. Rather than encouraging them all to go do something else, Emily accepted their company, and they had fun together, examining the contents of her stocking.

The next part of Christmas Eve at the LaMontagne house was playing board games and things together. Will had gone upstairs to get everyone's stockings that they had put together the night before, and Sandy was back in her chair, looking up baking recipes on her tablet for the next day. TJ, meanwhile, was watching Emily interact with the kids, a far-off, dreamy look on his face. JJ had doubt that TJ was envisioning how his future with Emily was going to go. Completely attentive to the kids, Emily didn't notice him watching.

"TJ?"

He snapped out of his imagination and looked around to see his baby sister summoning him.

"What's up?" he asked, joining her.

"Will you come help me get the games out of the play room?"

TJ knew JJ so well that he realized immediately that she was trying to get him alone, so he just played along.

"Okay, sure."

The second they were alone in the play room, TJ sighed.

"I taught you about discretion and recognizing body language long before you thought about joining the FBI, JJ. What are you actually thinking?"

"Emily is my best friend, and she's been my companion when we're in the same city as well as my confidant for ten years, no matter where we are." JJ began as she pulled board games from a shelf and handing them to TJ to hold. "I'm as close to Emily as I was to Rosaline, and I've known her almost just as long."

Remembering the intensely strong bond his little sisters had had, TJ kept his cool. "Is this your way of saying that if I hurt Emily, you'll end me?"

"Yes, especially because I have a gun. I've always been this protective of her."

"Why?"

"Because the first day that Emily and I met, she showed up at the BAU out of nowhere, like an angel. To make a long story short, she had been hired, but there was a misunderstanding about her paperwork, so she was benched until things were sorted out. She wound up on my office door step, literally, and introduced herself to me."

"Best friends ever since?"

"Yes, and because of our bond, she's protective of me, too."

TJ arched an eyebrow. "Your stories have suggested that, time and again. What happened to Emily?"

Memories of learning of Emily's spy days and of the Doyles, of Emily getting branded and then staked by Ian Doyle, of dropping her off in Paris to help her hide and start over, and of their heart-to-heart conversation on the way there all came flooding back to JJ. So did the memories of living with the secret that Emily was actually still alive when they and Hotch had been forced to pretend for seven months that she'd been staked to death, as well as the memories of how long Spencer had given her the cold shoulder for ages when the truth came out.

"It isn't my place to give exact details, but if you ask her, you need to be prepared to talk to her about Rachel." JJ put a few more games and activity boxes into TJ's arms. "Emily's been though hell more than once, TJ, and part of the reason that you've even met her is because there was a point when I had to tell a bold-faced lie that would ensure her staying alive."

"I'd say that you're exaggerating, but you're not showing any signs."

"Emily has also gone through some things to protect not only me, but the team, too; the phrase 'fight to the death' isn't something she takes lying down, and she will protect the ones she loves without a second thought, but I also know the real Emily, who isn't a warrior. She is just as human as the rest of us. A little more vulnerable and scarred up, bust still just as human."

"JJ, I'm promising you right now that I will protect Emily and take care of her—I know I just met her, but we are already both so in love, that it's already really easy to have fun with her and talk to her. It's also really easy to practice being good to her."

"Do you mean that?"

"One hundred percent."

JJ more than approved of her brother and her best friend being a couple, but still, she didn't say anything because she was thinking of what she wanted to say next.

"Talk." said TJ.

"Obviously, the kids love Emily, and she loves them back, but did you know that she wants kids of her own?"

"Yes."

JJ blinked—she hadn't been expecting that answer. In fact, she'd been expected him to be surprised, not to totally steal her thunder and pull the rug out from under her.

"Just what did you guys talk about while you were wrapping presents in her bedroom?"

"Emily and I talked about all sorts of things, including the fact that she has two babies in Heaven."

"Does she know that you want more kids, too?"

"She does, and she said she hope it happens. She's also already friends with Isobel and says she will be good to her."

"That's really great." JJ said sincerely.

"If God is willing, and Emily and I do have kids together, I doubt that either one of us would have the willpower to keep Emily being pregnant from you for long—that is, if you didn't figure it out first, since you two read each other like books."

"She is my partner."

"And I have the utmost respect for that. I would never dream of ruining the bond you two have, and I most certainly would never dream of hurting her. The last time I loved someone the way I love Emily, it was Rachel."

At that, JJ dropped her 'protective little sister' mode and softened up—she'd been sixteen the first time TJ had brought Rachel Evans, the future mother of his daughter, back to the farm for her and Sandy to meet, and then freshly turned nineteen when she'd become an aunt. Even after all these years, JJ still remembered Rachel very well: she had been warm, smart, extremely beautiful, and so kind, sometimes coming around just to hang out with her so that they could get to know each other. JJ also remembered that Rachel and TJ had been so in love, and that she hoped for a love like theirs one day.

Most of all, JJ remembered finding out that Rachel had died giving birth to Isobel because she'd had an aneurysm.

After that, all JJ had ever wanted for TJ was to be happy with someone like he had been with Rachel, and now he was—with Emily.

"Put those games down."

Used to his sister's bossy ways, TJ set the stack aside on a table and then found himself being hugged by her.

"I'm so happy for you, TJ." she said in a tone that was clearly the tone of an adoring younger sibling. "I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am for you."

He returned the hug. "Thanks, JJ. I know things have been on a super fast-track, but your approval is really important to me."

"What's happening?"

Sandy had come to check on her children, and was amused to find them hugging.

"Nothing!" they said quickly, pulling apart like embarrassed school children.

Sandy looked skeptical, but she didn't press the issue.

"Well," she picked up the stack of games and motioned for the other two to walk in front of her. "Then enough lollygagging and whatever—I promised everyone hot chocolate, but you two are taking forever."

"We're going, we're going!" TJ laughed. "Is Henry going nuts, waiting?"

JJ groaned. "One thing that kid isn't is patient."

When they returned to the living room, a night of game playing hot chocolate drinking ensued, while outside, the snow continued to fall.