Alright guys, so I hate to be like this but hardly anyone has reviewed this lately... so I'm not sure if maybe people just aren't liking it anymore, which is fine.. But I need to know if I should continue, so if I don't get some more reviews I'm not going to continue and work on my other stories! Please let me know!
"Please take a seat" she offered, gesturing to a couch and beanie bags that were across from her chair.
Emily put Charlotte down on the bean bag chair and went to sit next to her on the couch, but Charlotte immediately got up and went to sit on Emily's lap, too afraid to be without her.
Emily offered an apologetic smile to the therapist who waved it off to tell her it wasn't a big deal.
"So Charlotte I was hoping we could just talk today, would that be alright with you?" Dr. Freeman asked, trying to make eye contact with the child.
Charlotte refused to make eye contact with her, but shrugged to show her consent.
"Great." She said. "How do you like Virginia and living with Agent Emily?"
Charlotte hesitated to answer, but after a minute she began talking.
"I.. I like it" she whispered.
Dr. Freeman smiled to encourage Charlotte to continue. "I eat much more and I hawe my vewy own bedwoom and I get to plway lots." She continued, her voice gaining just a little bit more strength.
"I'm glad to hear that" Dr. Freeman replied. "What do you like to play with?"
"I weally like puzzles and colworing" she offered.
Emily gave her hand a reassuring squeeze to let her know how great she was doing.
She also noted that her speech patterns were much worse that day since she was nervous and made a mental note to talk to Dr. Freeman later about them.
"Puzzles, huh?" Dr. Freeman replied smiling. "I like those too."
Charlotte offered a small smile and some eye contact back. Maybe her mommy was right, talking to her wouldn't be so bad.
"Have you gone anywhere with Emily?" Dr. Freeman asked
Charlotte nodded and sat up a little more. "We went shopping and to the aqua-re-um" she said slowing, trying to pronounce it correctly.
"That sounds like a lot of fun" the doctor said. "Were there other people there?"
Charlotte nodded.
"How did it make you feel to be around more people than just Emily?" She asked
Charlotte shrugged, "Sometimes they were scawry and I didn't wike it but sometimes they were ok." She answered honestly.
Emily was so proud of how well Charlotte was doing.
"Did you go anywhere else? To any other appointments maybe?" Dr. Freeman asked leading her to talk about the pediatrician.
Charlotte nodded slowly and some of her confidence went away, "I went to the doctows office."
Dr. Freeman nodded encouragingly, "A doctor like me?" She asked
Charlotte nodded slowly, "No, it was a differwent one."
"How was it different?" She asked.
"They.. touched me and put all these weird things in my ears and on my stomach." Charlotte answered much quieter, not wanting to elaborate past that.
"How did that make you feel?" Dr. Freeman followed up
Charlotte started to stiffen some and looked up at Emily for reassurance.
"Um..I d- I don't want to tawk about the doctows pwease" Charlotte said, clearly beginning to panic.
Dr. Freeman smiled gently. "That's ok Charlotte. We never have to talk about something you don't want to" she assured.
She pulled out a blank piece of paper and some new crayons from her desk and put them on a kids table next to the couch.
"Do you think maybe you could draw how you felt instead?" She asked
Charlotte shrugged and slowly got up and went to the table to begin her picture.
"Agent Prentiss, why don't you go catch up with your team. I'll walk Charlotte back when we're done." Dr. Freeman requested, excusing her.
Emily nodded, "Thanks" she said, getting up.
"Ok Charlotte, I'll be right down the hall if anything happens, ok?" She said.
As soon as Charlotte nodded Emily left, not wanting to give her time to second guess it.
She walked back into the BAU office and let out a huge breath.
"Hey hey" Derek said, greeting her. "How's she doing?"
"She seemed ok, but they also didn't really talk about anything hard." Emily said, frowning slightly.
"It'll be ok, you know how good Dr. Freeman is" Derek reminded.
Emily nodded. "You're right."
"I saw your text" Derek said. "Do you think it was just nerves?" he asked, referring to last nights bed wetting incident.
"Hopefully" Emily said, "she was pretty distressed over it."
He nodded.
"Derek, I think we should tell Hotch... about us. We need to at some point, and we're both here, and he's here and we're not on a case..." she said
He thought for a minute then nodded his agreement. "Yeah I guess you're right"
The two walked up to Hotch's office. Prentiss knocked twice and Hotch looked up from the paperwork he was focused on.
"Emily, hi" he said, getting up to hug her. "How are you?"
"I'm good Hotch. Charlotte's talking to Dr. Freeman right now."
"That's great" he said, gesturing for them to sit and closing the door. "Jack talked to her after Haley and she was a huge help."
Emily smiled, "I hope so."
She and Derek looked at each other, neither really sure how to bring it up to Hotch.
"Is there.. something you needed to tell me?" He asked, looking between the two of them.
Derek spoke for them. "We needed to inform you and the FBI that were in a relationship" he said.
Hotch looked between them again and laughed.
They looked questioningly at him.
"It's about time" he said, getting some paperwork from his file cabinet. "By Reid's calculations this has been going on for what, two months?"
Surprised again. "We thought we did so well hiding it" Emily said.
"Yeah well apparently not from pretty boy blabber mouth" Derek muttered
Hotch smiled and handed them the forms. "It's just a formality the bureau needs, but there shouldn't be any problems" he said.
Emily let out a huge breath, glad to not have to worry about that anymore.
"Well then I should go start on this fun paperwork... and have a nice chat with Reid" Derek said, excusing himself.
"How are you doing Emily?" Hotch asked again. "What you're doing is not an easy thing..."
"Hotch" she said, cutting him off. "Charlotte's the best thing that ever happened to me. It's tough, but she's getting so much better. Really. The social workers coming in a few days to start talking about legal adoption and if all goes well she should be ready for school pretty soon too."
He smiled. "I'm glad. So what does this mean for the BAU?"
"Well, I still have enough paid vacation to last me... the next 4 months or so, honestly. But obviously won't use all of that. I'll probably need the next couple weeks off though, at least until I can get her settled into a school. Then... I'm not sure. Part time? Full time with a good nanny? I'll make it work." She promised.
"I know you will" he said. "Don't worry about this. Keep doing whatever you can from home and whenever you can come back, we'll be ready to have you." He promised.
As Hotch and Emily were still catching up, Dr. Freeman and Charlotte came back through the BAU doors.
Derek saw them, and got up to meet them.
Charlotte looked a little distressed, but not terribly so.
"Hey Carol" Derek said, getting up to greet them.
"Agent Morgan" she said with a smile, shaking his hand.
"Hi Charlotte" he said, looking down.
She offered a small smile and took her thumb out of her mouth. "Hi Dewerk"
"Emily's still talking to Hotch. I could stay with Charlotte in the conference room?" He offered.
"That'd be great. I need to talk to her when she comes out."
Derek lead Charlotte up to the conference room and got her a juice pouch, then sat down next to her.
"Nice shirt" he said, looking at the yellow butterfly stitched onto her shirt.
"Thank you" she said politely.
"Dewerk?" She said unsurely. "Puzzle?" She asked, referring to their code cord to talk from a couple nights ago.
He nodded. "I'm all ears sweetie"
"Dr. Fweeman wanted me to tawk about master... but I didn't want to. And I don't want Mommy to be mad" she said.
Derek couldn't help but smile when Charlotte referred to Emily as mommy.
"I promise you she won't be, Char. She's going to be really proud of you staying and talking to her, just like I am, ok?" He said.
She nodded.
Outside, Emily was talking with Dr. Freeman about the rest of their appointment while Charlotte told Derek all the new fact she had learned from the aquarium.
"She did really well Agent Prentiss" Dr. Freeman said. "The level of abuse she went through physically and mentally was very significant, especially on someone so young. I'm very impressed with how well she's adjusting. But, she will need regular therapy. With me or someone else, at least once or twice a week."
Emily nodded.
"She also likes to use art to express her feelings, which is good. She drew this" she said, showing Emily a picture of the doctors exam table with black scribbled over it "for the doctors and this," she said, showing her a different picture of red slashes "when I asked her about Hosben. She wasn't ready to open up about Hosben, or even too much about the doctors and now wasn't the time to push her. But she is likely to start opening up more to you at home. Always listen to her, and if it's a good time, encourage her to draw how she feels and bring them to appointments. I unfortunately have to run but I'll call you later for any questions you might have." Dr. Freeman said.
"Thank you so much Carol" Emily replied gratefully.
"Of course" she said with a smile, then went back to her office.
Emily couldn't help but smile when she looked into the conference room and saw Derek and Charlotte talking and laughing, and she went up to join them.
"Hi mommy" Charlotte said, happy to see Emily again.
"Sweetheart I'm so proud of you! You did such a good job." She said, wrapping her in a hug.
Charlotte smiled, proud of the praise she got.
Derek grinned too. "Charlotte, maybe if it's ok with Mom I'll bring dinner tonight and we can red to you again?" He proposed.
Charlotte nodded enthusiastically. "I want to show you my fish!" She said smiling.
"Sounds great" Emily told him.
"Alright, how about we stop for ice cream on the way home?" She asked Charlotte. They had gotten some at the aquarium and she loved it.
"Yes pwease" Charlotte said, happily.
She gave Derek a hug goodbye then got back into Emily's arms, relieved to be done with the doctors for now and very relieved to be back with her mom.
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