Chapter 15

The family-owned Greek restaurant was a total hole-in-the-wall. It was nondescript, even a little rundown-looking on the outside, and was located in a strip mall, but the food was good. That combined with the restaurant's convenient location near Quantico made it a favorite of the BAU team on the rare occasion they were in town and not out on a case.

The restaurant was Hotch's choice, but Emily knew he only picked it because it would be convenient for her. She was actually surprised he chose it because they ran the risk of running into the others there, but she asked around and was confident that no one on the team would be crashing her lunch with Hotch – not that she would have minded if the team joined them. Emily just had a feeling Hotch would mind. The only one on the team that their former Unit Chief really stayed in touch with was David Rossi.

Hotch only reconnected with her because she reached out to him for legal advice. Emily didn't expect anything more than that from him and was surprised when he asked her to grab lunch – a lunch she had to cancel because of a case. This was their third attempt at meeting for lunch. Apparently the third time was the charm.

Emily spotted Hotch in a booth at the very back of the restaurant. He was dressed as casually as she'd ever seen him in a polo shirt and dark wash jeans. He stood politely when he saw her. She gave him a quick hug and then slid into the booth across from him.

"I'm glad you could make it," Hotch said. His tone and expression were neutral. There wasn't the slightest hint of the sarcasm or frustration Emily might expect from someone she'd cancelled on two times already.

It was no wonder Emily Prentiss had so few close personal friends – people had a tendency to stop making plans with her because she blew everything else off any time the team had a case. She ended up cancelling on people a lot more often than not, and eventually they just gave up on making plans with her.

Relationships were even harder. As patient as Andrew had been so far, it was usually only a matter of time before the patience of any men who had ever been in her life romantically ran out. Their egos couldn't take coming in second to her career – and they always seemed to come in second. She'd had to think about leaving her life – and Mark – in London to take the position as Unit Chief of the BAU, but in the end, her relationship with Mark hadn't been enough for her to turn the opportunity down.

No one could really understand the demands of her job and her schedule, not unless they'd been in her shoes – and as former Unit Chief of the BAU, Aaron Hotchner was the only person who had actually been in her shoes. It was nice for Emily not to have to apologize for once.

"Me, too," Emily told him with a warm smile. "Thanks for coming all the way out here."

"It's no problem," Hotch replied easily. "I already ordered for you. Greek salad, right?"

"Am I that predictable?" Emily asked him. It would have annoyed her if it were a date ordering for her without bothering to ask her what she wanted, but she knew Hotch was just being conscientious of her time constraints. And after all the times the team had eaten there, he knew what she liked.

"Just your lunch order," Hotch told her. It was true – they'd known each other for a long time, but, in a lot of ways, Emily Prentiss was still a mystery to him. Of everyone on the team, Hotch and Emily were the two who kept their personal lives more personal.

"Let me guess – you got a chicken bowl?" Emily said with raised eyebrows.

"We already know I'm predictable," Hotch said dryly.

"You are a creature of habit," Emily agreed.

They caught up on what they'd been up to the last few weeks, Emily's work excluded, while they waited for their food. Because her daughter was the reason Emily reached out to him in the first place, Hotch eventually asked how things were going with Hannah. They were commiserating over the challenge of shopping for a teenager at Christmastime when the waiter brought their food.

"Jack thinks that because I'm not working, money's an issue. He won't tell me what he really wants," Hotch complained. "He just keeps saying he doesn't need anything. I've tried telling him that between my retirement and Haley's life insurance, we're fine. I don't want my son to worry about money, but he's always been a worrier."

"That is so sweet but also so sad," Emily said fondly with a sad smile. "What are you going to do?"

"He always wanted a pet when he was younger, but with my work schedule and how often I traveled, I just couldn't justify it. I was thinking of surprising him with a pet of some sort. Not a dog," Hotch said quickly. He didn't want to deal with housebreaking a puppy. If he stepped in a pile of anything, his son's pet would be pet-non-grata in their apartment. He ignored Emily's knowing smirk and continued thoughtfully, "Perhaps an aquarium with tropical fish."

"Oh, he'll love that," Emily told him.

"And it will surprise him," Hotch said. "I don't envy you shopping for a teenage girl. They're even harder to buy for than teenage boys."

"How many teenage girls are you buying for?" Emily asked teasingly.

"Just one," Hotch replied. "Jessica's daughter, my niece. She's impossible to buy for. She returns everything anyone gets her. I usually just give her cash."

"That's not helpful," Emily said ruefully.

"Sorry," Hotch told her.

They moved on to upcoming holiday plans. Hotch and Jack were spending Christmas with Haley's family. Hotch hesitated to bring up Emily's mother, but he had to admit he was curious how the Ambassador had taken the news of her newfound grandchild.

"What about you? Will you be seeing your parents?" Hotch questioned after filling Emily in on his own holiday plans.

"I'd rather spend Christmas with the Grinch himself," Emily deadpanned.

Hotch's lips twitched, but he suppressed the small smile. Because he was part of the Ambassador's Security detail early in his career, Aaron Hotchner knew Ambassador Prentiss as well as anyone who wasn't family could ever really know a career politician.

Elizabeth Prentiss was always perfectly polite to her staff, Hotch included, but she was never warm or friendly. She asked all the right questions to seem interested in other people – or at least the people she needed - but she didn't really care about the answers. Every conversation, every interaction was calculated – a means to a political end. Whenever anyone asked after her daughter back then, Ambassador Prentiss told them that her daughter was off at Yale, but she never spoke of Emily outside of her academic achievements. She never spoke of her daughter as a person, but rather as a list of accomplishments.

The Ambassador had exacting standards for her staff, and Hotch got the sense she'd been every bit as demanding of her only child as she was of her staff. Aaron Hotchner had no doubt that the woman loved Emily, but she didn't know how to show it. There was nothing even remotely maternal or motherly about the Ambassador. Hotch couldn't picture the woman as a grandmother.

"Does she know she's a grandmother?" Hotch asked Emily.

"No," Emily answered flatly. "It's…not exactly the kind of thing you put in your Christmas card." She sighed wearily, knowing how her mother would react to the news. The only thing her mother would care about was the scandal of Emily getting pregnant while she was undercover and then giving her kid up for adoption.

Hotch lifted his gaze to meet Emily's. "No, it isn't," he conceded with the faintest trace of amusement in his voice. He knew Emily's mother was in Europe and probably didn't visit much. A face-to-face conversation with the Ambassador would take some doing – and he didn't get the impression Emily would be going out of her way to make it happen. "Will you be going to Dave's for Christmas then?"

Emily nodded. "Yes. Even though he won't let me help with anything," she grumbled good-naturedly.

"And with good reason," Hotch told her. He didn't think Emily would ever live down the time she burnt the Thanksgiving turkey to a crisp.

"You burn one turkey, and you're banned for life," Emily said with a self-deprecating smile.

"Have your cooking skills improved since then?" Hotch inquired with raised eyebrows.

Emily blushed slightly and lowered her gaze as she remembered the disastrous dinner she tried to cook for Andrew Mendoza on their first date.

"I'll take that as a no," Hotch said, observing Emily's flushed cheeks. "Is there a story there?"

Emily begrudgingly told the story of completely butchering Rossi's grandmother's recipe, making fun of herself in the process.

Hotch chuckled politely, but he was fixated on one thing. "You're seeing someone?"

As long as they had known each other and worked together, Hotch had never known Emily to have a serious relationship. He knew she dated. He had heard Emily, JJ, Penelope, and even Morgan talking about their dating lives in the breakroom. Where JJ had gotten serious with Will and Penelope had been engaged to Kevin, Emily had only ever told stories of particularly bad dates, never anything serious. Hotch could tell from the way she spoke that she really liked whoever it was she was seeing now, and he didn't like it, but he wasn't ready to admit why that was, not even to himself.

"Only if by seeing someone, you mean I've cancelled on him twice as many times as we've actually hung out," Emily replied easily.

"I'm glad to know it's not just me you're cancelling on," Hotch said mildly.

Emily tilted her head to the side and gave him a look. "You know it's not," she told him. "You remember what it's like."

Hotch nodded. "I do. The person you're seeing - does he understand?"

"Yes. He's actually an agent," Emily explained.

Hotch frowned. "Emily…anti-fraternization rules exist for a reason."

"And that reason's name is Dave," Emily joked, feeling a little uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. She was talking to Hotch as a friend, but it was starting to feel like she was talking to her boss even though they both knew he wasn't her boss anymore. She squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "But anti-fraternization rules don't apply here. We work in different units out of different offices."

"How'd you meet?" Hotch questioned.

"On a case," Emily answered reluctantly, not wanting her former supervisor to judge her for that. When she saw the disapproval in his expression, she felt like she had to defend herself. "The same way JJ met Will," she reminded him.

"That's different," Hotch said dismissively.

Emily stared at him incredulously. "How?"

Hotch hadn't questioned JJ's professionalism when the blonde started seeing Will after meeting him when they were in New Orleans for a case. The only difference here was that it was Emily and not JJ they were talking about, but Hotch would never actually say that. He was only just starting to realize it himself.

Emily Prentiss went from being the Ambassador's daughter to being his subordinate and a member of his team. Aaron Hotchner would never even have considered entering into a relationship with a member of his team. Unlike some people (namely David Rossi), Hotch actually followed the FBI's anti-fraternization rules to the letter. He believed the rules were there for a reason. A romantic relationship between two team members would have changed the team dynamic, and there was just no room for emotions to cloud their judgment in the field.

Emily had always been off limits. In the time that he'd known her, Hotch had never thought of her as an available woman despite the fact that she'd always been available. She was always too focused on her career to make time for a relationship. Hotch never really had to hear Emily talk about other men or see her in a relationship, and now that he did, he didn't like it.

Hotch realized he needed to give Emily an answer, but he didn't have one. He didn't know why the idea of Emily seeing someone bothered him so much. "I…shouldn't have said anything. It's none of my business."

Emily stiffened, her spine straightening and her hand clenching tightly around her fork. "No. I want to know. How is it different exactly?" Emily demanded in a hard tone, never one to back down from a fight.

"Will's not an agent," Hotch said simply, making an excuse that he knew he wouldn't have accepted if the situation were reversed and it were his professionalism being questioned.

"I'm not breaking any rules," Emily insisted defensively. She tried to cover the hurt she felt with an indignant glare. She cared about Aaron Hotchner's opinion of her, and the fact that he thought she would jeopardize her career for a guy she just met made her wonder what he really thought of her.

If he didn't do something to salvage this lunch and fast, Hotch knew Emily would still be mad when she left. It took them a month to find a time for lunch when Emily wasn't angry with him. He couldn't let her leave on this note.

"Emily," he said gently. "I'm sorry. I was surprised to hear that the person you're seeing is an agent." He paused as he considered what he wanted to say next, not wanting it to be taken the wrong way. "It's just that…you of all people usually keep your personal life separate from your professional life. I wasn't expecting that, and I reacted badly."

Emily knew he wouldn't have apologized unless he meant it. He never said anything he didn't mean - that's why his earlier comment still stung. "Maybe that's why I'm still single," she said with a rueful smile, trying to meet him halfway even though she wasn't ready to forgive him yet. "It's hard to find someone who understands the demands of the job and isn't in this line of work."

Hotch filed away the fact that she referred to herself as single even though she said she was seeing someone for further analysis. Maybe it wasn't as serious as he thought. "Haley never understood," he offered quietly.

"Is dating easier now that you're not working?" Emily asked him.

Hotch shook his head. "Not really. There aren't a lot of women out there who aren't scared off by the fact that I have a teenage son and a dead wife."

"You might want to ease into the dead wife," Emily suggested.

Lunch ended with them swapping stories of bad first dates, the earlier tension all but gone. Emily was laughing as Hotch gave her the profile of the last woman he went out with, who he diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder based on the two and a half dinner where the woman talked about nothing but herself.

"We should do this again sometime after the holidays," Hotch suggested tentatively when they were standing in front of the restaurant. He wasn't sure where he stood with her. She never said whether she accepted his apology or not, but she let the matter drop and had been smiling and laughing toward the end of the meal. He thought they were okay, but he couldn't be sure.

"I'd like that," Emily told him.


The week went by slowly. With no case, it was all paperwork and internal meetings. It was nice to have a week at home, but they were all field agents for a reason – not one person on the team liked sitting at a desk all day. By Wednesday, they were all going a little stir crazy.

When Emily received a text message late Wednesday night, she was ready for a case, but instead of being work-related, the text message was from Hannah asking if she was still up. It was after eleven. Emily replied simply that she was and waited to see what her daughter wanted.

"How early do you get up in the morning?"

Emily frowned at the new text message as she read it. Instead of typing a response, she picked up her phone and called Hannah, deciding that actually talking to the girl would be the best way to get to the bottom of what she wanted.

"Why the sudden interest in my sleeping habits?" Emily asked the girl when she answered the phone.

"Oh, um, my dad said it was too late to call," Hannah said.

"You can call me any time," Emily told her.

"I have a French paper that's due tomorrow," Hannah started apprehensively, knowing she should have mentioned the paper when Emily was helping her study for her final. "I have to get an A on it to get an A in the class. Do you think you could check the grammar tomorrow morning if I send it to you tonight?" The teenager blurted out her request very quickly.

"You have a paper that's due tomorrow?" Emily said in a surprised tone. "Why am I just hearing about this now?" She asked her kid. She helped Hannah prepare for her French final just that weekend, and the paper never came up.

"Because I'm writing it now?" Hannah mumbled her response, somehow making it sound more like a question.

"It's not even written yet?" Emily questioned in disbelief.

"I'm almost done," Hannah said defensively.

"How much do you have left?" Emily wondered.

"Like half," Hannah admitted reluctantly.

"Half?" Emily repeated incredulously. There was nothing like waiting until the last minute.

"Will you help me or not?" Hannah asked in a small voice. "I can send you what I have now," she offered meekly, knowing her birth mother wasn't very impressed with her at the moment. She had known the woman wouldn't be. She'd had to work up the courage to text Emily. "And you can look at the rest in the morning," Hannah finished hopefully.

Emily shook her head as her daughter spoke. She was already putting jeans and a sweater on. She'd been wearing the long sleeve Atlantic City shirt and sweatpants that she slept in and watching TV in bed as she tried to wind down from the day. "Ask your dad if it's too late for me to come over and help you tonight." She had no intention of doing her daughter's homework for her, but it would go faster if she were there to help. She knew Hannah wouldn't be getting any sleep until the paper was written.

"You don't have to come," Hannah said quickly. Her dad had specifically told her not to call Emily that late, and she knew he would be mad if he thought she asked the woman to come over.

"Let me talk to her." Emily heard Steve demand impatiently. She heard shuffling and wasn't surprised when seconds later his voice came over the phone instead of Hannah's. "I'm sorry about this," the adoptive father apologized for their daughter. "You don't have to come over here at midnight," he said in an embarrassed tone, his exasperation with the fourteen year old coming through loud and clear. "I told her it was too late to bother you."

"No, it's okay," Emily assured him. He was right that it was too late for the teenager to be calling anyone else, but Emily was Hannah's mother. The rules were different. Her daughter could call her any time. Etiquette went out the window. "Really," Emily insisted. "She's not going to get any sleep until her paper's finished, and it'll go faster if I help her," she tried to convince Steve. "Let me help her."

"If you're sure it's okay," Steve conceded reluctantly.

"I'm positive," Emily said.


Steve answered the door with a sheepish expression, clearly still embarrassed that Hannah had asked Emily for help at that time of night. He was wearing a Duke t-shirt and grey sweatpants. He apologized again and led Emily back to the kitchen where Hannah was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open in front of her and notebooks and textbooks spread out on the table.

The teenage girl was wearing an oversize Stowe sweatshirt and black leggings. Her hair was pulled off her face in a messy bun and she wasn't wearing any makeup. The dark circles under her eyes stood out in contrast to her pale face. It was clear just from looking at her that this wasn't her first or only late night that week.

"Emily," Hannah said tiredly, removing her earbuds. "Thanks for coming." She offered the woman a small smile.

Emily nodded and then proceeded to move one of the chairs around to the same side of the table her daughter was sitting on. She sat down next to the girl and looked over her shoulder. "Show me what you have so far."

Hannah gave her birth mother a brief explanation of the assignment and then let the woman read the unfinished paper. The first page was good, but the rest was riddled with grammatical errors. It was obvious that the teenager was completely exhausted, and the quality of her work was suffering for it. The paper Emily read weeks ago didn't have half as many errors in it, but then again Hannah hadn't been operating on no sleep when she wrote that paper. Emily was frowning as she finished the last page of Hannah's final paper.

"Is it that bad?" Hannah asked wearily as she popped the tab open on a can of Coke.

"Really?" Emily questioned with a disapproving glance at the soda can. "You're having caffeine now?"

"Yeah," Hannah said with a shrug.

"Aren't you tired?" Emily asked her kid.

"That's kind of the point of caffeine," Hannah replied.

"Yes, it is," was all Emily said in response. She knew Hannah would have a hard time going to sleep later if she drank a Coke now, but she wasn't going to argue with the teenager about it, especially not when Steve was just in the other room and wasn't going to say anything if his radio silence was any indication.

"Is it that bad?" Hannah asked again with a hint of impatience in her voice. Her birth mother's facial expression when she was reading her paper wasn't very promising. The fourteen year old felt like she was never going to finish the paper at this rate. She was so tired and just wanted this whole week to be over.

"There are a lot of grammar errors," Emily said honestly.

The young teenager let out a long-suffering sigh. "I'm gonna fail," she said dramatically with unshed tears of frustration in her eyes.

"You're not going to fail," Emily told her kid with an exasperated look on her face. "But if you're so worried about your grade, why did you wait until the last minute?"

As tired as she was, the teenager took the simple question as a personal affront. It didn't help that her dad had already lectured her for waiting until the last minute to start studying for her finals. Now, she had another parent – a parent the fourteen year old didn't really see as an authority figure yet – starting in on her, too. She didn't need this, not from Emily. "Did you just come over here to lecture me?" Hannah muttered sullenly with her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Because if you did, you can leave now."

Emily stared at her daughter in shock. She couldn't believe the kid she raced over there to help had really just said that to her. "No," she said slowly, trying really hard to remain patient with the teenager. "I came over to help you," she reminded the girl. "It's almost midnight, and I came over to help you with your paper – a paper I would have helped you with last weekend had I known about it," she added pointedly with a reproachful look. "But you waited until tonight to ask me for help. Now do you want my help or not?" She asked her kid seriously, poker face intact.

Hannah's eyes widened. No matter how badly she acted, neither of her adoptive parents would ever have refused to help her. But Emily could leave right that second – and the woman had a good enough poker face that the young teenager believed she would. If Emily left, she really would fail. "Yes," Hannah answered her birth mother with big, round eyes and a pleading expression. She needed the woman's help. "Please," the teenager added softly.

"That's what I thought," Emily told her child. "And I'm happy to help you," she reiterated to the girl, "but not if you're going to talk to me like that."

Hannah lowered her gaze and hung her head a little. "I'm sorry," she offered sheepishly. "I'm just really tired and stressed out right now."

"I know you are," Emily acknowledged. "And you have no one to blame for that but yourself."

"I know," Hannah said wearily. "I'm sorry."

Emily studied the contrite young teenager for a few seconds as she decided how much she could 'help' without actually doing it for her. In that moment, the mother just wanted the paper finished so her kid could get some sleep. "I'm going to fix the grammar errors," Emily said. "While I do that, you need to finish your paper."

"How can I do that if you're on my computer?" Hannah asked.

Emily took in her kid's perplexed frown and decided she wasn't being a smartass, at least not this time. "There's this great new invention called a pen," Emily said.

Hannah gaped at her birth mother, but the woman's serious stare prompted her to pick up a pen and start writing even though she knew she'd just have to type it up later.

Once her daughter was writing furiously, Emily directed her attention back to the open Word document on the girl's laptop. Hannah didn't need to know her plan yet, but as long as the girl cooperated with her, Emily was going to type the rest of the paper for her, fixing any errors in the process. It would just be faster that way.

From where he was sitting in the living room, Steve had heard everything that was being said in the kitchen. At one point, he was ready to get up and go in there to say something to Hannah, but he didn't need to. Emily seemed to have it under control. He was actually impressed with the way she handled the tired, moody teenager.

Half an hour later Emily was carefully typing Hannah's handwritten words while the girl got ready for bed. Steve waited for his daughter to disappear up the stairs and then approached Emily.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. "You really did not have to do this."

Emily's fingers stilled on the keyboard and she glanced up at him warily. "I wanted to."

"I can't imagine why with how she's been acting," Steve said, shaking his head. He didn't want Hannah's biological mother to think he was okay with how she was acting. He wasn't.

"What, like a teenager?" Emily said wryly as she went back to the task as hand, typing furiously.

Steve scoffed slightly. "More like a cranky toddler if you ask me."

Emily chuckled softly. "Was she more difficult as a toddler or now?"

"Now," he replied. "Definitely now. Are you kidding? I didn't have to worry about boys when she was a toddler," he tried to joke. "But in all seriousness, she was a happy baby. She was a little daredevil as a kid though. She climbed everything, and I do mean everything. The worst was when she was five or six and climbed up onto the roof of her treehouse to jump off into the snow. It had to be at least ten feet off the ground."

"Was she okay?" Emily asked with wide eyes.

"She was perfectly fine," Steve told her. "Meanwhile I thought I was going to have a heart attack."

Thanks to Penelope, Emily had seen pictures of her daughter growing up, but that was different from hearing the stories about Hannah growing up. She hung onto every word Steve said.

"Sarah always said it was amazing Hannah never cracked her head open with all the stunts she pulled," Steve continued. "The only time she ever really got hurt is when she was seven. She fell off the top of the metal bar at the top of the swing set at school during recess and broke her arm."

By the time Hannah came back downstairs with her face washed, teeth brushed and pajamas on, her French paper was finished and Emily was laughing at a story about Hannah wanting to wear her adoptive mom's high heels to Six Flags so they would think she was tall enough to ride a roller coaster she didn't quite meet the minimum height requirement for.

"Dad," Hannah whined as she caught the tail end of the story. "Why are you telling her that?" Without waiting for an answer, the embarrassed teenager turned to her birth mother. "I was, like, seven," Hannah said in her defense. She looked back at her dad accusingly. "What else did you tell her?"

"Nothing," Steve lied. "Did you thank Emily for helping you?" He asked, trying to distract his daughter. She didn't look like she believed him, and he knew she wouldn't let it go.

The girl turned to Emily. "Thank you," she said dutifully.

"You're welcome. I'll see you on Saturday?" Emily confirmed their plans. Saturday was supposed to be her day off although it didn't always work out that way. Lately it was turning into her day with her daughter.

"As long as there's no French," Hannah said seriously. After her final was over, she didn't even want to look at another French word until after Christmas break and maybe not even then.

A/N: Thank you for reading and, of course, to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! I didn't plan it this way, but Hannah's finals week ended up being actual finals week for a lot of people. I know writing a paper isn't high excitement, but I wanted to show how Emily responded to Hannah acting like that when she was tired and stressed out. The next few chapters will be holiday-related, and my goal is to try to get them posted by New Year's, but no promises since, like Hannah's French paper, they're not done yet (but they are planned out and I have a little bit written). Hannah may make an appearance at the BAU Christmas party so please let me know if there's anyone on the team you want to see her spend time with. Other ideas or suggestions are more than welcome as well. Thanks again for reading.