A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! This is a long one with some Emily and Rossi and then Emily and Hannah.

Chapter 8

Emily called Rossi from in front of Steve's townhouse to check in. She was sitting inside the parked Suburban and needed to know where to go. It was late – or rather early – and she didn't know whether the team had called it a night or was still working the case.

"Emily," he answered almost immediately. "How'd it go?" He asked her before she could ask about the case.

"It went," Emily said, feeling like a failure as a profiler and a mother since she couldn't get a read on her own kid. "She said she wants to get to know me."

"That's good, right?" Rossi checked, surprised by her reserved tone. He thought she'd be over the moon.

"It is," Emily replied hesitantly. "It's just…I don't know. She finds out she's adopted and she runs away. She finds out I'm her mother and nothing."

"She didn't react to it?" Rossi questioned.

"She was pretty shocked, understandably so, but I was expecting her to be angry or hurt or something. If she was, she didn't show it," Emily explained, shaking her head even though he couldn't see her.

"That could still come after she has time to process it," Rossi pointed out.

"That's true," Emily acknowledged. "I needed time to process it, and I wasn't blindsided the way she was." She knew her fourteen year old had been blindsided twice in one night, first learning that she was adopted and then meeting Emily. It was possible that after her extreme reaction to the news she was adopted, the young teenager was too emotionally drained to deal with anything else.

"I was blindsided by Joy," Rossi offered. "You weren't here then, but she was following me, and I was convinced she was a stalker."

Emily laughed incredulously. "You're kidding?"

"I'm afraid not," Rossi told her. "I can't believe I've never told you this story."

"I would remember if you had," Emily said with certainty.

"She showed up at work," Rossi told her. "This was after I had Penelope look into her and decided she was a crazed fan girl. I almost called Security."

"You didn't," Emily said.

"I said almost," Rossi emphasized. "When she finally told me who she really was, I didn't believe her. She already lied to me about who she was once. I left her standing there in the middle of the office and went to follow a lead on our case."

"Poor Joy," Emily murmured.

"I know, I know – not one of my proudest moments," Rossi admitted. "When I thought about it - I mean really thought about it - I realized Hayden wouldn't have told me if she was pregnant. She knew I wasn't ready to have a family."

"Oh, I don't believe that for a second," Emily interjected. "You would have been an amazing father to Joy growing up if she'd given you that chance."

"You didn't know me thirty-four years ago," Rossi said skeptically. He didn't have a reputation as a playboy for nothing.

"I know you, and you are always there for the people you care about. It doesn't matter if it's an ex-stepdaughter who doesn't even want your help, an ailing ex-wife, or a member of the team. You've had my back more times than I can count. There is no doubt in my mind that you would have done the right thing by Joy," Emily said with conviction.

They were family – the whole team was family, but Rossi and Emily were especially close. He'd been something of a mentor to her back when she was still the newest member of the team. Although he came back to the team after she was already on it, he was one of the original founders of the BAU and had more experience than she did. David Rossi was the only one who had her back when her friend, Matthew, died, and she defied Hotch's orders to get justice for him. It hadn't felt like her own partner had her back or trusted her instincts, and Hotch hadn't gone to bat for her, but Rossi put himself on the line to help her. He'd become one of her most trusted confidantes, if not the most trusted. She trusted his opinions and advice - even when they were unsolicited, as they often were. He didn't always mind his own business, but Emily knew it was only because he cared. He was the loving, supportive paternal figure she wished she'd had in her life growing up. She couldn't stand to hear him question whether he would have done the right thing by Joy if he'd known about her when she knew he would have.

"I'd like to think I would have, but we don't know that. We'll never know what I would have done because Hayden didn't tell me," Rossi said in a measured tone. "Which is why it took time for me to believe Joy was my daughter, and time for me to get my head on straight once I did. Finding out you have family out there that you didn't know about is a lot for anyone, let alone a kid."

"You're saying she needs time. But if she's upset or confused, talking about it would help," Emily reasoned.

"It will help," Rossi agreed easily. "When she's ready."

Emily sighed loudly. She knew she didn't know her daughter well enough to predict how she would react, but the strangely calm reaction just seemed like the calm before the inevitable storm. She hated the idea that she was leaving the girl to weather the pending emotional storm alone when she'd caused it.

Rossi heard the sigh and chuckled softly. He couldn't help but be amused that Emily was so frustrated with her daughter for not talking about her feelings when getting Emily to open up was like cracking the code to the high security vault where her feelings were safely locked away. "Welcome to the club," he told her. "That's how the rest of us feel when you play it close to the vest, kiddo. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you don't talk until you're ready. It sounds to me like your daughter's the same way."

"So much for nature versus nurture," Emily muttered ruefully. Profilers generally thought nurture was more important in shaping behavior, but genetics must have played a role in her daughter's behavior if she had Emily's poker face. "I was actually calling to check in on the case."

Rossi filled her in on the latest. The unsub was Dr. Charles Griffith. He was a surgeon – key word was. His own daughter, fifteen year old Caitlin Griffith, died six months ago. Caitlin was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia when she was only two, and had been in and out of remission her whole life, but it wasn't the leukemia that killed her – it was her kidneys.

After the funeral, Griffith returned to work for a few weeks, but there were complaints against him and he was now on a leave of absence. It was almost too easy to get a confession out of him. He was proud of what he was doing. In his mind, he was saving the lives of innocent girls like his daughter when the medical system failed them. There was just one problem – Griffith confessed to performing illegal kidney surgeries on three girls, and they only had two victims. According to Griffith, he only did the third surgery that night.

Even though she knew Hannah was safe at home, it hit Emily like a sucker punch how easily the third victim could have been her own kid. She already knew her daughter fit the victimology, but she hadn't known the unsub was hunting for his next victim while Hannah was missing.

The team was searching the streets for the girl now. Emily told Rossi she'd be there soon, and started driving in the direction of the hospital.


Emily was surprised when Steve called her to see if she wanted to see Hannah on Saturday. Technically the girl was still grounded, but Steve thought Hannah was having a harder time with everything than she let on in front of Emily and decided it would be better for her to see her biological mother over the weekend when she would have time for any emotional fallout before going back to school on Monday.

Steve knew his kid's stoic act was just that – an act. She wouldn't be able to keep up the act forever. Hannah was still mad at him for not telling her that she was adopted – that much was obvious from the sullen attitude the girl had been copping all week. He didn't know what Hannah was thinking or feeling about Emily because she refused to talk to him about it, responding only with snotty comments like oh, you want to talk now after thirteen years of lies? Even though she wouldn't talk to him about any of it, he knew his kid well enough to know she was overwhelmed. Not knowing what else to do, he brought up the idea of finding a therapist she could talk to – a suggestion the teenager completely balked at.

At a standstill with his daughter, Steve finally gave up and set up a time for her to see Emily sooner rather than later. If she wouldn't talk to him or a therapist, maybe she would talk to Emily. He knew she had questions for the woman who gave birth to her and hoped the answers would help Hannah understand why her biological mother gave her up for adoption and start to make peace with it. But in case that backfired on him, as he knew it could, he didn't want the first time the girl spent time with her biological mother to be on a school night.

His logic made sense, and Emily jumped at the chance to see her daughter, but it made her wonder if it was a mistake for her to come back into the girl's life now. She knew going in that just because her kid was motherless didn't mean she would want or accept Emily as any kind of maternal influence – biological mother or not. Emily wasn't expecting immediate acceptance or an instant bond. She tried to prepare herself for the possibility of anger, even the possibility of being rejected by her own kid, but she hadn't been prepared for how hard it would be to know her kid was hurting and not know if she could help or if she was only making things worse.

With her daughter's precarious emotional state in mind, Emily thought she'd take her to brunch first and then they could go somewhere to talk. Brunch would give Emily a chance to build a rapport with the girl and try to connect on a personal level before they delved into the sensitive topic of Hannah's adoption. She found it awkward to ask for permission to take her own kid to brunch, but ran her plan by Steve anyway.

Apparently Steve didn't tell their daughter the plan because the first thing Hannah asked when she got in Emily's car on Saturday morning was what they were doing. A little taken aback by the question since she thought Steve would have told her, Emily told her kid that she'd made brunch reservations at a brunch hot spot in Dupont Circle. Hannah had heard of the trendy restaurant, but had never been and seemed excited to try it.

"And then we can go somewhere to talk," Emily added cautiously.

"What are we going to be doing during brunch? Sitting there eating in silence?" Hannah asked dryly. She wasn't trying to be rude. She was nervous about spending time with her birth mother for the first time ever and defaulted to covering her discomfort with sarcasm.

Emily glanced at the teenager in her passenger seat, trying to gauge whether she meant anything by it or was just being sarcastic. There was no challenging glint in her eyes and no defiant tilt to her chin, but there was a small smirk playing on the girl's lips. Sarcasm it was. She raised her eyebrows at her teenage daughter. "I thought you might have some questions that you'd rather not ask in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but if not…" She trailed off and shrugged as if to say it was up to Hannah.

"Oh," Hannah said, blushing as she realized Emily was right. "I do." She had a lot of questions, but the biggest one was why – why her birth mother gave her up, why her birth mother didn't want her. It was the question keeping her up at night. When she was lying in bed at night trying to sleep, the teenager thought of different reasons a mother might have for not keeping her baby, and none of the reasons she came up with made her feel any better. She was almost afraid to find out the real reason, but she thought knowing had to be better than always wondering.

Hannah knew she shouldn't care. So what if Emily gave her up? She didn't even know Emily, and she had parents who loved her. She didn't need another parent. But, for some reason, she just couldn't shake the feeling of rejection. It was a completely foreign feeling for the beloved only child whose adoptive parents had always doted on her, and Hannah didn't really know how to deal with it so she wasn't dealing with it at all. Instead, she just shut down emotionally.

"If you don't want to go anywhere else, I can just take you home after brunch and we can talk there," Emily offered kindly as she turned her attention back to the road, understanding that the girl might be more comfortable talking about something that could be triggering for her in her own home.

"Uh." Hannah hesitated, shifting uncomfortably in the passenger seat. "My dad's at home. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but I kind of want to know who my father is."

Emily's hands tightened on the steering wheel. She knew going into this that there was a good chance her daughter would ask about Ian Doyle and had been dreading answering. How did she tell Hannah that her father had done terrible things? How could she possibly explain what she was doing with Doyle to a teenager in a way she could understand? Some of the people Emily worked with didn't even understand. How could she hope a child would ever understand?

"We can always go back to my condo after brunch," was all Emily said in that moment. She was going to delay telling Hannah who her father was for as long as possible – at least until after brunch. She wanted to enjoy her kid for a little while before inviting the inevitable judgment for what she'd done - being with Doyle - as part of her job. She knew it would hurt if her own kid looked at her the way Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid did sometimes when the subject of Doyle came up.

Hannah merely nodded her agreement in a subdued manner as she toyed with the gold heart-shaped pendant on the necklace she was wearing. It was a nervous habit and a dead giveaway to the profiler that her kid was uncomfortable. Emily wished her daughter wasn't so uncomfortable with her, but knew it was to be expected since the girl didn't really know her.

"Did you have a good week?" Emily asked, resorting to small talk in an attempt to change the subject and hopefully get the kid to come out of the shell she'd retreated back into a little bit.

"Well, I was grounded so it wasn't great," Hannah answered ruefully.

"Ah, well, you can't really blame your dad for wanting to keep you close after your disappearing act," Emily said.

"Not you, too," Hannah said with a groan. She'd been looking for sympathy, but clearly wouldn't be getting it from Emily. "My dad already lectured me."

Emily glanced at the kid out of the corner of her eye in amusement. "That wasn't a lecture."

"It could turn into one," Hannah replied warily.

"Yeah, well, do it again and it will," Emily told her daughter without thinking. She had no idea where that came from – it just slipped out. She didn't think she was in any position to make threats when she had just met her daughter - and she was sure the teenager would agree. She knew it wasn't much of a threat, but still…she couldn't go from the first real conversation she'd ever had with her daughter to diving right in and lecturing her. She didn't want to overstep when their relationship was so new.

The profiler knew that night could have ended very differently. She was glad Hannah missed the last train home from Bethesda because the girl would have been within the geographic profile if she'd made it back to Washington. And if the unsub had seen her fourteen year old walking the streets of D.C. alone late at night…well, Emily didn't want to think about what could have happened, but she was acutely aware just how close her daughter came to being in real danger. It could have very easily been her kid recovering in the hospital right now instead of Callie Stevens. Callie was Griffith's third and final victim. He'd taken her during the same timeframe that Hannah had been missing. If her presence in Hannah's life were already established, Emily would have had something to say about the teenager putting herself in danger. But for now, she just smiled nervously at the girl, hoping to pass it off as a playful threat.

Hannah glanced at her birth mother with wide eyes before deciding the woman wasn't really serious. "I'm not planning on it…unless there's something else everyone's lying to me about."

"I've never lied to you," Emily protested with a sharp look at the girl. The bitterness in her daughter's voice bothered her.

"You haven't had time to lie to me yet. You've only known me for, like, a week," Hannah countered.

"If you're waiting for me to lie to you, you're going to be waiting a long time," Emily told her kid calmly. She wasn't surprised to have her absence from the first thirteen years of Hannah's life thrown in her face. She fully expected to get some flak for that. She could take whatever the girl threw at her. She even thought she deserved it to a certain extent.

"You did tell me you were just an FBI agent," Hannah pointed out.

"I never said just," Emily said defensively. "And I'm sorry if I didn't think that outside of a closed Metro station was the right place to tell you who I was."

"That's fair," Hannah acknowledged begrudgingly.

"I know trust has to be earned, and I'm going to do everything I can to earn yours," Emily said. "I'll never lie to you, Hannah."

Hannah looked at Emily in surprise. She was used to adults expecting her to trust and respect them for no other reason than their age.

"What?" Emily questioned, feeling her daughter's eyes on her.

"Nothing," Hannah said, quickly looking away again.

As they entered Dupont Circle, Hannah continued looking out the window, people watching. The neighborhood drew a diverse crowd. There was something for everyone - used bookshops, art galleries, clothing boutiques, restaurants and bars. There were always people playing chess, reading, or walking dogs near the marble fountain in Dupont Circle proper.

Emily found a parking spot a block away from the restaurant. As they walked, Hannah looked longingly in the windows of the chic boutiques they passed. Emily took note of it, thinking maybe a shopping trip would be in order next time they hung out - that was assuming there would be a next time.

"Do you live here?" Hannah asked as they walked.

"I live close," Emily answered. "I can walk here from my place." She was renting in the same neighborhood where she almost bought a row house years ago. She liked the area, but she didn't want to be on any of the busy main streets. She lived close enough to walk to the restaurants and shops, but far enough away that the bustling nightlife didn't bother her.

They beat the crowd to the brunch hot spot. It would have a line of people out the door waiting thirty to forty-five minutes for a table - and the bottomless mimosas - closer to noon, but they got there at 10:30 and were seated right away.

Looking at the tables of harried young couples with babies and toddlers and groups of women in their thirties who looked like they'd come straight from a yoga class, Emily knew she would have stuck out like a sore thumb if she'd worn her normal tailored slacks or her gun. She had shed her self-imposed FBI uniform in favor of dark wash jeans, a tan turtleneck sweater, and her black leather jacket. Her attire was deliberately casual – an attempt to ensure her daughter saw her as a person and not just an FBI agent. She had noticed the girl's preoccupation with her gun and badge and left her Glock at home this time even though she felt naked and exposed without it.

The waitress came over to take their drink orders almost as soon as they sat down. The waitress was an older woman with curly grey hair in a bun and a matronly disposition. Hannah ordered a vanilla iced coffee, and awkwardness ensued when the waitress looked to Emily for permission to serve the young teenager coffee. With Hannah's strong resemblance to Emily, it was no wonder the waitress assumed correctly that they were mother and daughter, but, of course, the woman had no way of knowing that their circumstances were…unique to say the least.

Unfortunately, Hannah picked up on the waitress' hesitation to take her coffee order and the way she turned to Emily for permission. In her opinion, whether she drank coffee or not was none of Emily's business. Her birth mother couldn't just come back after thirteen years and change the rules her dad had for her. To be fair, Emily hadn't actually said or done anything to make Hannah think she would do that, but the teenager didn't like the idea that Emily could say no and the waitress would listen to her. The mere possibility of being told no filled the fourteen year old with childish indignation.

"I can have coffee," Hannah said with a fierce expression, the fire in her eyes practically daring her birth mother to say otherwise. "I drink coffee all the time," she exaggerated.

Emily shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "It's fine," she told the waitress with an apologetic smile. "And I'll have herbal tea."

An awkward silence fell over the table once the waitress left with their drink orders in hand. Emily silently cursed the waitress for causing this completely unnecessary tension. The elephant in the room would have been there regardless, but after that exchange, it felt like the elephant had pulled up a chair and joined them for brunch. Emily knew she needed to act quickly to smooth things over even though she hadn't actually done anything wrong.

Emily tilted her head to the side slightly and gave her kid an imploring look. "Don't give me that look. I didn't say anything about the coffee," she pointed out in her own defense. "It's not my fault the waitress has a problem with supplying teenagers with caffeine."

Hannah lost her defiant glare almost immediately. When Emily put it that way, she knew it wasn't really fair to hold the waitress' actions against her birth mother. Emily had never actually said no or given her any indication that she disapproved of her drinking coffee. Hannah's cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she realized she had gotten angry over nothing. The girl lifted her menu and pretended to study it intently in an attempt to hide her red face and sheepish expression.

"Maybe she shouldn't be a waitress in a place that serves coffee then," Hannah muttered quietly, staring hard at the menu to avoid Emily's piercing gaze.

Emily studied her kid from the opposite side of the table, smiling when she realized Hannah wasn't really reading the menu, only hiding behind it. It was childish behavior and reminded Emily how young her daughter still was.

Feeling uncomfortably like she was under a microscope, Hannah finally looked up from the menu. For the second time since meeting Emily, Hannah felt like she was looking in a mirror when her eyes met her birth mother's eyes. It was a strange sensation, and she wondered if it would ever not be weird for her to look at Emily and see herself in the older woman.

Emily was glad her kid was at least looking at her again and continued the difficult task of single-handedly chipping away at the wall of tension between them with little to no help from the teenager. "There was a time when no one got between me and my coffee either," she told her kid lightly. "I quit caffeine," she explained, "but I started drinking coffee when I was your age. We were living in Italy so I kind of had to. They don't mess around with coffee. That's where my caffeine addiction started. It didn't stunt my growth so I think you're genetically predisposed to be tall regardless of your caffeine intake."

"Wait, you lived in Italy?" Hannah said in an awed tone, her earlier embarrassment quickly forgotten. "That's so cool."

"Yeah." Emily suppressed a triumphant grin as she succeeded in getting her moody teenager talking again – and not just talking but genuinely interested. "My mom was posted in Rome. She's an ambassador. We moved around a lot because of her postings. Believe me, it's not actually that cool to always be the new kid trying to fit in."

Emily thought she saw a brief flash of understanding in the girl's eyes, which was strange because Hannah had only moved once in her life and her new house wasn't even ten miles away from her old house. Before she could read anything more into it, Hannah asked where else she'd lived.

Emily took her daughter through the long list of countries she'd lived in, both growing up and as an adult, stopping to answer the girl's questions about each of them. Hannah showed the most interest in Italy, France, and England. She was one of the only ones in her friend group who had never been to Europe and really wanted to go. They hadn't really been on any big trips since her mom got sick.

There were still a few countries left on the list when the waitress brought their food - chicken and waffles for Hannah and an omelette for Emily. They continued chatting as they ate. Emily found it easier to make conversation now that she'd accidentally stumbled on a topic that captured and held her daughter's interest.

Hannah had always lived in the general D.C. area and found her birth mother's life fascinating. The woman had lived all over the world and was extremely well traveled. She was so cosmopolitan and worldly.

When Emily casually mentioned moving to London to run the Interpol office there, Hannah thought it sounded exciting and important even though she didn't fully understand what Emily's job was or what Interpol did. For some reason, it was suddenly of the utmost importance to Hannah to impress the woman so she didn't want to admit to not really knowing what Interpol was.

Of course, Hannah knew Emily was an FBI agent now since that was how the woman introduced herself. She was imagining her birth mother as Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality. The young teenager wasn't allowed to watch the darker movies featuring FBI characters that would have given her a more accurate idea of what her mother actually did. If Emily had known what her daughter was thinking, she would have been torn between amusement and horror.

To the teenager, her birth mother's job was a lot cooler than her dad's boring desk job. The paperwork she'd seen her dad bring home and the business calls she'd overheard had Hannah convinced that a lawyer's work was mind-numbingly dull.

Although she knew Emily was her mother, Hannah didn't see the older woman as a mom, and not just because she already had a mom and it would have felt like a betrayal to the woman who raised her. Emily just didn't seem like a mom to her, at least not any of the moms Hannah had ever known. The woman was so unlike Hannah's adoptive parents, her aunts and uncles, or any of her friends' parents. Emily was actually pretty cool. Hannah didn't know her that well yet, but she just couldn't picture the woman who lived such an exciting life doing anything so mundane as attending a high school volleyball game or driving carpool.

The fourteen year old didn't see how she would fit into Emily's life or how Emily would fit into hers. She didn't even know Emily existed a week ago, but now that she knew, Hannah desperately wanted to be worthy of the woman's time and attention. The girl kept asking Emily questions, wanting to keep the focus off of her since her own life seemed boring in comparison. She couldn't imagine Emily would want to hear about school or volleyball.

In reality, Emily wanted to know everything about her daughter, but Hannah wasn't giving her a chance to ask any questions of her own. Emily didn't realize that was by design. Hannah's interest in her seemed genuine so Emily had no reason to question her motives. Emily was just happy the teenager was engaged in the conversation and seemed to be having a good time with her.

"Out of all the places you've lived, what's your favorite?" Hannah asked curiously.

"I like London, but D.C. is home," Emily told her. "And after moving around so much it's really good to be home."

"You'd really rather live here than Paris?" Hannah said in disbelief. The teenage girl had a romanticized view of the city of love with its legendary shopping and food.

Emily suppressed a shudder as she thought of the last time she'd lived in Paris. She was legally 'dead' and had been miserable and alone. Being there after losing the life she'd built in Washington and the people who had become family to her when all she wanted was to go home had effectively ruined the city for her. "There's no place like home," was all she said in response.

"Do you speak French?" Hannah asked seemingly randomly.

"Uh-huh," Emily said with a little laugh as she wondered where her daughter was going with this. "Why?"

"Like, fluently?" Hannah checked, not bothering to answer Emily's question.

"Oui," Emily replied with a dry expression.

"Would you maybe look at my paper for me?" Hannah asked shyly. She didn't think the woman would want to help her with her homework, but she could really use the help and had been working up the courage to ask. Her French teacher was tough, and a lot of students who usually got A's were struggling to maintain a B in the class, Hannah included. "It's due next week, and my teacher takes off a whole letter grade for every mistake."

"You're taking French?" Emily clarified.

"Unfortunately," Hannah replied. "The teacher's the worst. No one in the class has an A."

"I can help you," Emily offered eagerly, knowing ninth grade French would be a breeze for her.

"Thank you," Hannah said appreciatively, her eyes conveying her gratitude.

"It's no problem, I'm happy to do it," Emily told her, secretly thrilled to have an excuse to spend more time with her daughter and on an activity like helping her with her homework – something that seemed pretty mom-like to Emily. "So what's your favorite subject? Obviously not French." She asked with a smile, finally able to get in a question of her own.

"English. I like to read," Hannah answered.

The rest of brunch was spent comparing notes on different books. Emily was scandalized when she learned her daughter had never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut, but there were some historical fiction books they'd both read and liked. Emily was glad to have found something she had in common with her daughter other than DNA. Hannah seemed to like anything that was set during the Holocaust. She was reading The Diary of Anne Frank and promised to read Mother Night when she finished it.

By the time they finished eating and the waitress brought their check, the initial awkwardness had all but faded, but that all changed when the waitress brought Emily's credit card back and they left the restaurant. As they got back in Emily's car, they both knew the time was rapidly approaching for the emotionally heavy-hitting topic of Hannah's adoption.

Emily thought she had a pretty good idea of what her daughter's questions would be. There were universal questions everyone who was adopted had, and they weren't easy questions - not for anyone.

Emily just hoped her answers wouldn't undo what little progress she'd made with her daughter that morning.