A/N: This one's on the longer side. If you bear with me for the first part that includes an OC (the adoptive father of Emily's AU daughter), there's some Hotch / Prentiss and then the whole team working on a case.

Chapter 4

It wasn't hard to find the name of the law firm where Steve Johnson worked as an attorney with a focus on Corporate Banking.

Emily had no idea how Steve would react to her showing up at his office like this. He could be angry, defensive, threaten her with legal action, or a hundred other scenarios Emily didn't even want too think about.

She was a good judge of character – she had to be in her line of work. She thought he was a good man or she never would have chosen him to raise her daughter. In their one meeting, he'd struck her as kind and compassionate. But that was over fourteen years ago. A lot could change in fourteen years.

Emily stood outside the high-rise building in downtown Washington that housed the legal offices of Steve's firm, leaning casually against the building with a takeaway coffee cup filled with tea in her hands. The herbal tea was doing little to calm her nerves as she waited for her daughter's adoptive father to arrive for the day. She was keeping an eye out for him so she saw him the moment he came into view.

Just like with Sarah, Steve's face was forever embedded in Emily's memory. He'd aged, as had Emily. His light golden brown hair was thinning, but there was no grey in it. Emily still recognized him immediately.

He would have walked right past Emily if she hadn't stepped into his path, forcing him to look at her. He wasn't looking for her – why would he be? He was just walking into the office on autopilot like he would any other Monday morning, not expecting a ghost from his past to show up randomly.

"Excuse me," he murmured politely as he glanced up, meeting her gaze with startled hazel eyes. He blinked in confusion. It took him a nanosecond, if that, to place her face. His mouth actually hung open as he stared at her in complete and utter shock, letting his leather briefcase fall to the sidewalk with a thud. In addition to the initial shock of seeing the biological mother of his only child completely out of left field after more than fourteen years, he couldn't quite get over how much Hannah looked like the woman who had given birth to her. "Grace? What are you – what are you doing here?"

"Can we talk?" Emily asked, shifting uncomfortably under his wide-eyed gaze.

The man nodded dumbly. He was still struggling to form coherent sentences as he tried to process this blast from the past. "Uh, yeah, we can, um, talk in my office," he mumbled as he picked his briefcase up from where he'd dropped it in surprise.

Emily followed him into the building. Once inside, they took the elevator to the top floor. Steve led the way past the receptionist's desk and into his office, stopping only to tell his assistant to hold his calls.

"Have a seat," he offered as he sat down behind the desk.

Emily took the indicated chair opposite him. "First of all, my name's not Grace. It's Emily," she started, reaching for her badge.

His brow furrowed in confusion and his eyes darted toward the door as he considered calling Security to escort her out of his office.

"I know that sounds crazy. If you'd just let me explain..." Emily looked at him with pleading eyes. "I promise you I can explain."

Steve was beginning to question the sanity of the woman in front of him. He opened his mouth to refuse her, but stopped when her eyes found his. His daughter had the exact same big round eyes that were so dark that the black pupil and brown iris were almost indistinguishable. How many times had his little girl looked at him with those pleading eyes? He closed his mouth again and nodded resignedly. "Go ahead."

"My name's Emily Prentiss," Emily said again, sliding her badge across the mahogany desk as proof of her identity. It would hold more weight than a driver's license or passport. She waited patiently as he inspected the badge carefully.

"You're FBI?" Steve inquired with wide eyes. The badge wasn't just proof she was who she said she was – it was also a symbol that inspired trust. Like most law-abiding citizens, he had an ingrained belief that law enforcement was there to serve and protect. It made him feel a lot more comfortable with the woman in his office, even if her status as Hannah's birth mother still made this situation awkward.

Emily nodded. "When I met you, I had been undercover for Interpol for two years. I was scared my baby would be in danger because of my undercover work. That's why I decided on adoption and why I used an alias."

Steve studied her with shrewd eyes, instantly worried. "Is my daughter in danger? Is that why you're here?"

Emily noticed the possessive language – my daughter – and swallowed as she shook her head. "No. Anyone who would have targeted her is dead now. I wouldn't be here otherwise. Her safety was always my top priority."

Steve exhaled sharply. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted her – you," Emily amended, seeing the alarmed look on his face, "to have my real name in case she ever wants to find me. You wouldn't get anywhere with the alias I used fourteen years ago."

"She doesn't even know she's adopted. We were going to tell her together, but Sarah got sick – breast cancer," Steve muttered quietly, lowering his gaze to the desk as he fought the familiar feeling of grief that hit him every time the subject of his late wife came up.

"I'm sorry," Emily said sincerely.

"We almost told her she was adopted when Sarah got sick. It's genetic – the BRCA gene. If she were ours biologically, she would have a fifty percent chance of having the gene, and something like an eighty percent chance of getting breast cancer." Steve's face twisted into a bitter expression. "We didn't want her to worry about that, but I don't think she really understood that what Sarah had was hereditary. She was only ten. Sarah died right before her twelfth birthday."

"If it helps at all, there's no history of cancer on my side," Emily told him.

"It does," Steve acknowledged grudgingly. "We wondered about that."

"I can answer any questions you have," Emily offered.

"Thank you," he had the good grace to say. "It would…it would be good for us to know her medical history in case anything ever happens."

"Does that mean – are you going to tell her?" Emily asked hopefully, subconsciously leaning forward a little in her chair.

"I don't know," Steve said with a weary sigh, throwing his head back against the headrest on his desk chair. "I don't know. I wish Sarah were here for this. She would know what to do. She always knew what to do."

Steve closed his eyes as he thought of all the times he'd needed Sarah over the last few years – all the times she would have known exactly what to do with Hannah and he'd been in over his head as a newly single dad to a pre-teen and now teenage daughter.

There was a time recently when his strong, spirited daughter came home from school in tears and stubbornly refused to tell him what was wrong. Sarah would have known just what to say to her, but he had absolutely no idea what to do with a crying teenage girl who wouldn't talk to him – and not for lack of trying on his part. It was just one of a thousand times he'd needed Sarah and Hannah had needed her mom. He was trying so hard to be everything his daughter needed, but he questioned whether he was enough for her every day.

He remembered a conversation they'd had toward the end when they knew the chemo and radiation weren't working and there was nothing else the doctors could do. Sarah was going to die – it was just a matter of when. She had said she wanted him to move on, to find someone else, to be happy. He'd tried to stop her, not wanting his sick wife to think like that, but she kept going. She'd said through tears that if she couldn't be there for Hannah, she would want someone else to be there for their daughter. He knew she was thinking of a stepmother who would be there for their daughter if he were ever to remarry and wondered what her thoughts would be on Hannah's biological mother. He thought he knew. He knew one thing for sure - Sarah hated the idea of Hannah growing up without a mother.

Feeling like he knew what Sarah would do if she were there, Steve opened his eyes again and met Emily's gaze. "Sarah liked you."

"I liked her," Emily responded easily. "I liked both of you. You wouldn't be raising my baby as your own if I didn't." It was honest, if a little blunt.

"We named her after you – or Grace anyway," Steve said with a dry expression. "Her name's Hannah. It means grace. It was Sarah's idea. Her middle name's the same as Sarah's. We named her after both her mothers." He looked a little uncomfortable with the admission.

Emily already knew her daughter's name, but she wasn't going to admit to her Google stalking. She hadn't realized the name Hannah was in her honor. She stared at him, touched by the gesture even if her name wasn't actually Grace. She held her breath as she waited to see if he would tell her anything else about her daughter.

"God, she looks just like you," Steve said softly.

"Well, she is comprised of half my gene pool," Emily said, feeling a little awkward under his intense stare.

Steve hesitated slightly before turning a wooden picture frame that was facing him on his desk around so it was now facing her.

Emily hadn't been able to find any pictures of her daughter on the Internet – something the mother in her was happy about for safety reasons. But that meant this was the first time she was seeing a photograph of her daughter. A young teenage girl with dark hair that fell just past her shoulders in soft waves and dark eyes stared back at Emily from the confines of the picture frame, taking Emily's breath away.

"May I?" Emily asked as she reached for the frame. She waited for him to nod and then picked up the picture frame, studying her daughter's features closely as she looked for similarities. They weren't hard to find.

Their coloring was similar, but not exactly the same. The girl's hair was dark, but nowhere near as dark as Emily's raven-colored hair. Instead, it was a rich medium brown. The eyes so dark they were almost black with long, thick lashes were identical to Emily's. The light smattering of freckles on the slim, straight nose was the only thing that reminded Emily of Declan. The similarity to Declan was a good indication that Hannah had the Doyle Irish white skin, but Emily chose to ignore that and see what she wanted to see – pale skin that could have just as easily come from her. She didn't want to see traces of the man who had tortured her in her daughter so she didn't.

It wasn't just their coloring. It was Hannah's face that made her look like Emily more than anything else. They had a lot of the same facial features from the high forehead all the way down to the wide smile.

Emily didn't know how long she'd been staring at the picture when Steve cleared his throat pointedly, prompting her to set the picture frame back down on the desk so he could return it to its proper place.

"You're right," Emily said, her voice catching. "She does look like me."

"I know," Steve said simply. He studied her with a conflicted expression for several long seconds. "If I tell her she's adopted and she wants to have a relationship with you, is that – do you want that?"

"Yes," Emily answered without hesitation.

Her eager response must have scared him. He stiffened instantly. "Let's get one thing straight here," he said, looking her straight in the eyes. "I'm her father, and Sarah is – was – her mother. You being here now doesn't change that."

"I know. I understand that. I do. I don't want to step on any toes here," Emily said, knowing she needed to tread carefully. "What happens next is up to you. She's your daughter. But I care about her, too."

Steve held her gaze, his expression softening a little with that affirmation. "I'll tell her she's adopted. I can't make any promises though. I have no idea how she'll react." He shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling as he wondered how that conversation was going to go. He was already dreading it. It wasn't a conversation he ever thought he'd have alone, without Sarah.

"Teenage girls are notoriously unpredictable," Emily said with a trace of humor in her voice.

"You're telling me," he grumbled good-naturedly. "The truth is she's been having a hard time since Sarah died. We both have."

"Is there anything I can do? For either of you?" Emily inquired.

"No. I need to tell her first, and I should be the one to do that," Steve said. He didn't sound very excited for the conversation ahead, and Emily couldn't really blame him – there was no easy way to tell a kid that she was adopted. It would be a huge shock for her. "If you'll give me your contact info, I'll call you if she wants to meet you and we can set something up."

They exchanged phone numbers, and Emily left his office feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time. The meeting had gone a lot better than she thought it would.

Emily knew waiting to hear back from Steve would drive her crazy, but she didn't expect this to be instant. She would wait. It just wouldn't be patiently.


Buoyed from her meeting with Steve Johnson, Emily called Hotch from the car on her way in to Quantico. She hadn't forgotten her promise to keep him apprised. She knew he would worry if he didn't hear from her. That was just how he was.

At first Aaron Hotchner was surprised to see the call come in from Emily on a Monday morning when she should be at work, or at least on her way in, but then he remembered she was planning to talk to the adoptive father of her daughter that morning.

"Emily?" He questioned as he answered the phone. "Is everything okay?"

Emily heard the concern in his voice and spoke quickly to reassure him. "It's fine."

Hotch thought of how many times she had insisted she was fine in the field when she was in desperate need of medical attention – whether she wanted it or not. If they'd been having the conversation in person, he would have given her an unimpressed look. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you have a very different definition of fine from most people, myself included."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Okay, then you'll be happy to know I'm not calling you for legal advice."

"I take it the conversation with the adoptive father went well then?" Hotch inquired.

"It went way better than I expected," Emily said honestly. She proceeded to give him the Spark Note's version of everything she and Steve Johnson talked about.

"That's great, Emily," Hotch said sincerely. He could hear the nervous excitement in her voice at the prospect of meeting her daughter.

"She may not even want to meet me," Emily rambled nervously. She was trying to manage her own expectations and not get her hopes up too high.

"She will," Hotch told her.

"You can't know that," Emily said.

"Yes, I can," Hotch insisted. "Most adopted children want to know where they come from. You know it's not uncommon for them to seek out their birth parents. We've even had cases where being rejected by a biological parent was a trigger for our unsub. She will want to meet you, Emily. And when she does, she'll love you."

"What if she doesn't?" Emily asked worriedly, gnawing her bottom lip. "I gave her up. She might not understand why. What if she hates me?"

"That's not possible, not once she gets to know you," Hotch told her.

"How can you be so sure?" Emily questioned.

"Because I know you," Hotch said simply. He hesitated, not entirely sure how to ask what he wanted to, or if it was even a good idea, but knowing he didn't want to hang up now and go another couple years without talking to Emily Prentiss again. "Listen, do you have a case right now?"

"Not that I know of," Emily answered. "But I'm just on my way into the office now."

"Let me take you to lunch. Get your mind off waiting for that phone call," Hotch said, referring to the call from the adoptive father that he knew Emily would be anxiously waiting for all day. "Besides, I owe you lunch since you didn't actually end up needing my legal services and you paid the other day."

Emily was pleasantly surprised by the invitation. She thought Aaron Hotchner would go back to his new life that didn't include her, or anyone from the BAU except maybe David Rossi, and she wouldn't see or hear from him again. "I'd love to," she said. "I'll let you know if we get a case. Otherwise, I'll see you at noon. Just let me know where to meet you."

Hotch agreed and ended the call with a smile.

He was still wary of becoming too entrenched with the BAU team after what happened with Foyet and Mr. Scratch, but Emily had been exceedingly careful not to talk about work with him. She was perceptive that way. She'd even managed to navigate the subject of Reid's arrest without bringing work into it, which must have been difficult. He appreciated it more than she probably knew.

The fact was he missed them – all of them – but he had to put Jack first. When he thought of all the times he or another agent on the team had been in danger, even personally targeted by serial killers, he knew the best thing for his son was if Hotch just stayed away from the BAU completely. Unfortunately, that meant keeping his distance from people he'd once considered good friends because their work at the BAU had a way of becoming intertwined with who they were and everything they did.

Maybe it didn't have to be that way. Could he be friends with the various BAU team members outside of work? He didn't know if all of them would be able to compartmentalize as well as Emily. She was unusually adept at keeping her professional life separate from her personal life. He knew she was capable of keeping any personal relationship he might have with her completely separate from her work.

He had almost forgotten how much he'd come to depend on Emily at one time. Outside of David Rossi, she was probably the person whose judgment he trusted the most. He still had a great deal of respect for the woman he handpicked to take his place as Unit Chief – and not just as an agent and a leader, but also as a person.

He meant what he'd said the other day – he thought he and Emily were a lot alike, and not just when it came to how they handled themselves professionally. For one thing, she was the only other person he knew who could even come close to understanding how hard it was to come back and try to reclaim what was left of your life after being in Witness Protection. It was nice to have someone he could talk to about that.

Honestly it was just nice to talk to Emily about anything again. He hadn't realized how much he missed her. It was good to have her back in his life, and he wasn't ready to let his friendship with her slip away again.


Unfortunately it didn't take long before Emily had to text Hotch to cancel their lunch plans. She was more disappointed than she usually was when she had to cancel plans.

The team had a case.

"Okay, this one came to us courtesy of JJ's hubby," Penelope started. "D.C. Metro didn't even realize they had a case worthy of us, but Will convinced his captain to ask for our help."

"Just out of curiosity, why didn't they think they needed our help?" Rossi questioned.

"There are only two victims so far," Penelope explained. "And only one of them is actually dead. Our first victim is fifteen year old Emma Duncan. She ran away from home after a fight with her stepfather and showed up in the emergency room five days later with a 103-degree fever and an infected surgical wound from – get this – kidney surgery. That's right, she's missing a kidney. It was there when she left home and gone five days later."

"Wait, someone took her kidney?" Luke Alvez asked incredulously.

"That's what I just said," Penelope said a little huffily, her annoyance stemming from who was asking the question, not the question itself. She had finally warmed up to the profiler who replaced Derek Morgan, but she couldn't seem to help herself when she had an opportunity to give Luke a hard time. "Emma was in bad shape when she showed up at the hospital, but she's recovering in the hospital now and is expected to make a full recovery unlike our second victim, seventeen year old Paige Morgan. Paige had an older college-age boyfriend her parents didn't approve of and left home to be with him. Her body was found dumped in a back alley behind the hospital almost a month after she was reported missing by her mother. She was also missing a kidney."

"What was the cause of death?" Tara inquired.

"Like Emma, she had an infection, only Paige's infection went untreated," Penelope said. "She never sought help. She was septic at her time of death."

"Did either of these kids actually need surgery?" Emily asked.

Penelope shook her head. "They were both the very picture of health."

"If our unsub is a doctor, he's not a very good one," Reid commented. "SSIs or surgical site infections only occur in an estimated five percent of surgeries involving incision and are more common in the elderly or people whose immune systems are already compromised. Statistically, there's no way two otherwise healthy teenagers should have both contracted SSIs."

"Unless they only developed infections because they were on the streets instead of in a hospital or at home where they belonged after a surgery like this," JJ mused. She had a mother's disdain for how well any kid would follow a doctor's instructions without a parent making sure they did. She knew Henry wouldn't.

"They were both runaways. Do our victims have anything else in common?" Rossi asked.

"No, nothing. They went to different schools and lived in different neighborhoods in different suburbs of D.C.," Penelope told them.

"Why runaways though?" Reid questioned with a furrowed brow. "It's like JJ said…if our unsub is looking for healthy organ donors, why is he finding his victims on the streets? Runaways have a higher probability of being drug users and having unsafe sex practices."

"He could just be taking whoever's available," Luke suggested.

"He doesn't appear to have a type," Tara added, looking at the pictures of the two victims that were projected in the conference room. "I mean, Emma is brunette and Paige is blonde. They have different body types and are different ages."

As they wrapped up their briefing, Emily took charge, dividing the work ahead of them up amongst the team in a logical manner. "Okay. JJ and Spencer, go talk to the M.E. and conduct your own examination of Paige Morgan's body. Tara and Dave, I want you to go to the hospital and interview Emma Duncan. See what she remembers, if anything," Emily continued divvying up tasks. "The rest of us will look into the black market angle since both victims are missing the same vital organ. Penelope, keep looking to see if you can find any other connection between Emma and Paige."

With that, the team split up to go their separate ways. There was no need to take the jet since the case was local.

As Emily got to work with Matt and Luke, her mind was singularly focused on the case and finding whoever was doing this to these girls. The phone call she was waiting for from Steve Johnson completely slipped her mind, her earlier worry and anxiety fading away.

A/N: Thanks for reading. The conversation between Emily and Steve Johnson was an important step if Emily's going to have any kind of relationship with Hannah. Steve will be a part of this story just by nature of who he is to Emily's AU daughter, but it will be minimal from this point on. The only OC who will play a big role is Hannah. She will make an appearance in the next two chapters. The next chapter will have some of Emily with David Rossi and Emily with JJ as well as the phone call Emily's anticipating.