"I wanna sleep in your room," Jack whined that evening when Emily came up to say goodnight. Hotch had said his goodnights already, and was downstairs with Charlotte now. Henry was already out cold.

"Nope, sorry," Emily said, patting Jack on the chest. "You need to sleep in your bed."

"But Mommy…"

"You know the rules," Emily insisted, even though she melted a little at his name for her.

Jack's whine drew out into a cry.

Emily sighed and rolled her eyes behind her eyelids. Where is this coming from? she wondered. She didn't want to have to ask for Hotch's assistance, but at the same time, despite knowing Hotch gave her authority over Jack tantamount to his own, she still didn't feel comfortable disciplining him.

"You're sleeping in your own bed like a big boy. We've talked about this."

"But you let me before."

"I shouldn't have broken the rules," Emily said. "Time to go to sleep." Jack turned away from her crossly. She drew a deep breath. "I love you."

"No you don't."

Emily knew better than to take Jack seriously, even if she had no idea why he was acting up all of a sudden, but she had a hard time keeping the angry words of a five-year-old from offending her. "Yes, I do. Goodnight," she said, deciding to keep it short. She shut the boys' door most of the way and told herself not to take it personally while she descended the stairs.

She felt as if Jack could call her "mommy" until the cows came home and she would still never measure up to what he'd lost. And the same went for Henry and Charlotte. She knew she should be feeling elated after finding out her family would stay just as it was, but suddenly the fact that a court of law had to decide whether she could keep the children, as if they were property, was bursting her bubble, to say the least.

"Did you buy beer at the store?" she asked Hotch hopefully, skipping the living room for now and heading into the kitchen.

"It's behind the juice boxes," Hotch called from where he lay on the couch.

"Classy," Emily remarked, opening two bottles without asking Hotch if he wanted one. His attitude toward a cold one was similar to her attitude toward ice cream.

"I thought we had a good day?" Hotch asked when Emily set the bottles on the coffee table.

"We did, I just—oh my God," Emily whispered. "Is she sleeping?" She nodded toward the baby, who lay on her stomach on top of Hotch's middle.

"Not sure," Hotch said quietly. "She didn't react when I yelled to you just a minute ago, so probably."

Emily crouched down next to the couch to get a better look at Charlotte. Her cheek was pushed against Hotch's gray t-shirt and her eyes were closed. "Yup, she's out," Emily reported, running a delicate hand across the back of the baby's head and smoothing her thin, light hair. She caught Hotch's eye only for a second and flashed him a smile she couldn't hold back. "This has got to be the cutest thing I've seen in…I don't even know how long," she said, laughing. "What?" she asked when she glanced back at Hotch, whose eyes were rolled back into his head. "You can't tell me this isn't cute."

"That's what every man dreams of, you know. Being 'cute.'"

"Well, a man with three little kids including a baby who falls asleep on his stomach is going to have to get used to it. Want me to put her to bed?"

"Nope, we're good," Hotch said casually. "Hand me my beer?"

"That doesn't look quite right," Emily said, handing over Hotch's beer and watching him take a sip with the baby so close.

"We're a weird family, remember?" he said with a smirk.

"As long as the baby's not the one drinking…" Emily said, trailing off as she grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped herself up into a ball on the recliner. "Hey, do we have a camera?"

Hotch was flipping through the DVR, trying to find where they'd left off the night before. "I don't know, do we?" he asked, staring at the television screen.

"So helpful," Emily said with a grin.

"It's in a basket on top of the fridge."

"How did I not know this already?"

Hotch shrugged. "You don't have your own camera?"

"Only on my phone."

"Well, go grab mine. Ours. What's yours is mine, what's mine is yours, you know," he mumbled playfully.

"Eh," Emily grunted. "Just promise to do this baby-on-the-stomach thing again sometime soon when I'm not already sitting down."

"Feeling lazy, are we?" he said, craning his neck to get a good look at Emily.

"Shut up and play something," Emily said dryly.

"You okay?" Hotch ventured.

"I was just joking."

"I know, I know. I just thought you'd be a little…happier. You seem down about something."

"I'm fine," Emily said, determined to deal with Jack's outburst on her own. If she was going to strive to prove herself as a parent, she didn't feel that running to Hotch for every little hiccup was the best plan.

"Come on. You've been on cloud nine since I got home from the store, and then you come downstairs all sulky."

"I'm not sulky." Emily pointed to the television screen, but Hotch wouldn't back down.

"Are you going to argue with me about whether you're sulky, or tell me why you're sulky?" he pressed, taking a sip of his beer, putting it on the floor, and laying his hands on Charlotte's rhythmically rising and falling back.

"I can handle it on my own," Emily said.

"Is it about your mother?"

"No. Seriously, I can handle it on my own, okay?" Emily said testily.

"But you don't need to."

"But I can."

"Did Jack say something while you were up there?" Hotch persisted. Emily sighed but didn't deny it. "What did he say?"

"Aaron—"

"I can help."

"Why are you being so nosy?"

"Because he's my son." Upon the completion of his sentence, Hotch realized it was quite a bad one.

"Thanks, that helps tremendously," Emily said coldly. "All right. Your son is pissed because I won't let him sleep in my room. That's all."

"Emily, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by what I said. That was…careless."

"But true," Emily said, this time with a more even temper. "It's reflex. He is your son."

"And yours."

Emily expertly avoided eye contact with Hotch, not knowing what to add to the argument yet.

"I touched a nerve. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say." Hotch swung his legs off the couch and slowly sat up, keeping the baby against him.

"It's not your fault," Emily said. She decided not to discuss her insecurities about her relationship with Jack that stemmed from her not being named in Hotch's will. She knew it would have to come up sooner or later, so she was only prolonging the inevitable, but she was still too terrified of that issue to face it. "I'm just overly sensitive about the kids. It's…different for men and women. Not being someone's biological parent. I love the kids, I do, but it's hard knowing that I didn't carry them, that I didn't even plan to be a mother to them. It's a feeling I can't explain. It doesn't make me love them less, it just makes me less confident in my abilities as a parent, or even my right to be strict with them. I'm not saying it's logical to feel this way, but I feel this way nonetheless."

"I can understand that," Hotch said soothingly. "Mothers carry the baby around for nine months—"

"Actually, it's closer to ten—"

Hotch cocked a warning eyebrow at Emily. "And fathers don't. You're right. The experience is much more involved for mothers. But you shouldn't let that—"

"Okay, this is why I didn't want to talk about it," Emily said impatiently. "I appreciate the sympathy, and I know it's sincere, but it's just going to take time to get rid of the feeling that I'm not a real mom. Jack calling me 'mommy' does help, and I'm sure once Henry starts up, that'll help too, but this isn't something you can just talk out of me. It's just going to take time." Emily gave Hotch a soft look that let him know she wasn't angry with him, even if she wasn't upbeat like she had been the rest of the evening.

"I wish there were something I could do to help," Hotch said. "Besides backing off and letting you handle things on your own when you want to," he added.

"That will help. It really will. Trust me, if I need your help, I'll ask for it. I promise."

"I know. And I really am sorry for being pushy."

"It's perfectly okay," Emily insisted. "I shouldn't have let it get to me. Sorry for snapping."

Hotch smirked.

"What?"

He shrugged. "We just had an argument and resolved it in two minutes."

Emily laughed under her breath. "Do we have anything else we want to argue about while we're on a roll?"

"How about you mother?" Hotch tried.

"How about your brother?" Emily shot right back.

"Touché."

A/N: Please continue leaving reviews! :)