Chapter 20

"Wait, can I stay with Emily then?"

Steve stared at his daughter for several long seconds. He was at a total loss for words. He had an almost pained grimace on his face as he tried to figure out how to even respond to that. It was completely unexpected.

"Can you stay with Emily?" Steve repeated his daughter's question back to her slowly. "Why would you stay with Emily?" He asked her.

Hannah lifted her head from the couch to look at him in confusion. "You said you weren't going to leave me with Grandma," she reminded him in an almost accusatory tone. She was hoping he hadn't changed his mind already.

Steve raised his eyebrows slightly at the tone. "I'm not," he assured her again. "But-"

"And Aunt Jill and Uncle Tony are going to Stowe with you," Hannah continued to reason. "Where else would I stay?" She wondered with furrowed brows and a perplexed frown. She couldn't think of anyone else in the D.C. area that her dad would leave her with.

"Here, with me," Steve told her. He thought that should have been obvious.

"But you couldn't cancel the resort," Hannah pointed out.

"No, I couldn't. But I'm not going to leave you here while I go skiing in Vermont, you goofball," Steve told his daughter as he ruffled her hair.

Hannah mulled that over with a contemplative expression. "The doctor only said I couldn't fly because of my ear."

"And your fever," Steve added pointedly with amusement in his eyes. "Let's not forget that."

"We can still go. We just have to drive," Hannah said.

Steve looked at her with heavy skepticism. "This from the kid who hasn't moved from the couch once all afternoon."

"I'm sick," Hannah said defensively.

"I know," Steve said sympathetically. "Maybe we can meet everyone in Stowe in a few days if you're feeling better before New Year's, but I don't think you're going to be well enough to go tomorrow."

At first when his sister called to tell him that his daughter was sick, the father had visions of still going on the trip, but his sister and the doctor at Urgent Care had disabused him of that notion.

Hannah had a fever of 103, which was a higher fever than Steve could ever remember her having. That fact alone scared him. He wasn't sure she'd ever been this sick in her life. Of course, Hannah got sick – every kid did – but she was usually the type of kid who wanted to go to school, or at least volleyball and other activities, anyway. Steve knew she must feel pretty awful if she allowed a highly anticipated day after Christmas shopping trip with her aunt and cousins to end early.

Hannah liked snowboarding and had been looking forward to going to Stowe, but there was no way Steve was going to drag her to Vermont when she was this sick.

"But what about the resort?" Hannah asked worriedly.

"The resort isn't going anywhere. It'll still be there in a few days," Steve told her.

"No. That's not what I mean," the girl protested in a flustered tone, giving her dad a look of teenage annoyance. "I thought you couldn't cancel the resort. I heard you on the phone. You were mad."

"Not at you," Steve told her. "I'm just frustrated that the resort won't make an exception to their cancellation policy for a sick kid."

"I'm the sick kid," Hannah pointed out. "So it's my fault."

"No, it's not. You can't help being sick, sweetheart."

The father thought that would be the end of the conversation, but it wasn't. Hannah continued trying to convince him that he should go on the trip without her throughout the rest of the day. She wasn't trying to be a martyr. She just felt guilty about the money he spent on the trip, no matter how many times her dad told her not to worry about it.

Steve never discussed finances with his young teenage daughter and didn't think he'd ever given her a reason to worry about money – she got almost everything she asked for, within reason.

While he didn't want his sick fourteen year old worrying about money, it was an expensive trip. Any trip was more expensive over the holiday season because so many people traveled for Christmas and New Year's. They had reservations to spend five nights at a nice ski-in, ski-out resort that was over $300 a night at peak times during ski season. He hated to think of how much money he was losing due to the resort's cancellation policy, or lack thereof.

Hannah had heard him on the phone with the resort and knew he was mad even though none of his frustration was directed at her. That didn't stop her from feeling bad though. After all, if she wasn't sick, they would still be going. She didn't want to ruin the trip for her dad or cost him a lot of money.

The fourteen year old was getting increasingly upset by what she saw as her dad's refusal to listen to her pleas to go on the trip and leave her with Emily when he couldn't give her one good reason why she couldn't stay with the woman.

By the time the girl took medicine and went to bed for the night, she had managed to wear Steve down to the point that he was actually considering leaving her with Emily - a major feat in and of itself. It was too bad she thought his job was so boring because she would make an excellent lawyer.

Hannah was clearly comfortable with the idea of staying with her birth mother. It bothered the adoptive father that his daughter would be more comfortable staying with the woman she'd barely known for a month than with his mom, but he understood why she didn't want to stay with his mom. And, it wasn't even an option in this case - he wasn't going to leave his sick kid with his seventy-eight year old mother. His mom didn't need to catch the flu at her age.

It made Steve feel a little better that his daughter had eliminated his sister and her husband as a viable option before asking to stay with her birth mother. His family – Hannah's family – had been top of mind, but they would be in Vermont. To Hannah's point, Emily was really the only other available option. The problem was that he didn't want Emily to be an option in his daughter's mind. What happened if Hannah wanted to spend more than just the next five days with her birth mother?

There was no way that was going to happen. He wasn't going to let it happen. He needed to finish the conversation he started with Emily. They really needed to hash this out.

With that thought in mind, he dialed Emily's number. She answered after two rings.

"Is this a bad time?" Steve asked her.

"No," Emily told him. "How's Hannah?" She asked immediately, her concern coming through over the phone.

"She has the flu and an ear infection. She's already in bed. I thought we could finish our conversation now."

Emily was taken aback by that. She thought their conversation would have to wait until Hannah recovered from the flu, but she would just as soon get the conversation over with so she knew where she stood. "Oh. Um, I can meet you somewhere to talk."

The profiler wanted to be able to read the man's facial expression and body language as they talked, and she couldn't do that on the phone. Seeing how he was reacting would help her navigate the conversation without stepping on any landmines.

Steve was thinking they could just talk over the phone, but he, too, thought it was better to handle negotiations in person. He told Emily that he couldn't leave, but she could come to the house.

While he was waiting for her to arrive, Steve started cleaning up the aftermath of having a sick kid camped out on the couch all afternoon. He marveled at the sheer number of cups his daughter went through. There was a ceramic mug, a teal S'well water bottle, and an empty Styrofoam Jamba Juice cup out on the coffee table – all from Hannah. After he loaded the dishwasher, he folded the throw blanket the teenage girl had been wrapped up in.

Emily didn't knock or ring the doorbell when she arrived. She didn't want to wake Hannah up. Instead, she texted Steve and waited anxiously on the front porch. Even though she hadn't gone into work that day, she wore business casual attire to her earlier lunch meeting with Steve. She was wearing the same thing now - a crisp button-down shirt, black slacks, and her signature heeled boots. She allowed Steve to hang her black wool pea coat up and followed him into his home office. It was a room she'd never been in before, but it was further away from the stairs, and Steve chose it because their voices wouldn't carry up to Hannah's bedroom.

Emily's gaze swept across the unfamiliar room as she entered it. Her eyes were instantly drawn to the framed family photograph on his desk. It must have been taken the year before Sarah died. They looked like a picture-perfect family. Steve had his arm around Sarah's shoulders, and Hannah was standing just in front of her adoptive parents. All three were smiling widely for the camera.

When she sat down opposite Steve, Emily noted her daughter's report card sitting out on his desk. She could see that Hannah got straight A's. The mother was proud though she didn't know if she had any right to be. With the single exception of French, Emily didn't have much of anything to do with her daughter's successes or failures. The person her daughter had become had everything to do with Steve and Sarah Johnson.

"Where did we leave off?" Steve said to start the conversation once they were both sitting down. He knew exactly where they left off but wanted to see how Emily responded.

"We were discussing a visitation schedule," Emily replied, watching him carefully.

Steve was surprised she left it at that. He expected her to launch into an argument about it. She certainly didn't seem so accepting earlier. "So you agree to a visitation schedule then?" He wanted to clarify.

"I don't have much choice," Emily said, voicing what they both knew to be true. She still wasn't happy about it, but she was going to take Hotch's advice and go along with the schedule for now. Whatever she did, she was not going to engage in an argument with Steve. She needed to get back into his good graces.

"No. You don't," Steve agreed. Although he knew the law would be on his side if she fought him on this, he was relieved to hear the clear acknowledgement from Emily that he was in charge here. If they could both be reasonable about this, it would be better for everyone, especially Hannah. He didn't want a contentious relationship with the woman who was quickly becoming an important influence in his daughter's life.

"I do have a few questions," Emily said in a deliberately mild tone, trying to be as agreeable as possible.

Steve gave the woman a speculative look. "You do?"

"I can promise you that I won't drop by unless we have a scheduled visit," Emily began in a deferential tone. "But what do I do if Hannah seeks me out on a day when we don't have a scheduled visit? Maybe she wants help with French the night before a test?" She asked him, using the recent experience as a prime example. "Although I hope she's learned her lesson about waiting until the last minute," she added with a wry smile. They were both equally frustrated with the girl for waiting until the last minute to study for finals. Emily thought gently reminding Steve of that might help him see that they were both on the same side here.

"If Hannah seeks you out, tell me, and I'll…" Steve trailed off as he realized he didn't know what he would do in that situation. He knew exactly what recourse he had if his child's birth mother pushed the boundaries, but it would be different if his teenager was the one who didn't respect the boundaries he was trying to establish. And, based on the girl's impromptu request to stay with the woman, the father had to face the fact that it was a likely scenario.

Steve knew the relationship between Emily and Hannah wasn't all one-sided. His daughter had a mind of her own. She also had plenty of unsupervised time in the hours after school before he got home from work. If she wanted to talk to Emily or see Emily, realistically he knew there wasn't anything he could to stop her. Hannah had a cell phone and a laptop with access to the Internet. She had a Metro Card. She was fourteen. There was a certain amount of freedom and independence that went along with being a teenager.

The father let out a small, frustrated sigh. While a visitation schedule seemed like a good idea in theory, he was starting to see that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce in practice. He had been thinking like a lawyer when he proposed it. Legally, the terms of a set visitation schedule were more than reasonable. But it just wasn't that cut and dry. Now he was thinking like the father of a teenager, and the only way he could see his strong-willed kid adhering to this new schedule was if Emily flat-out refused to engage with her outside of the schedule. He didn't think Emily would do that. And, somewhere deep down, he didn't know if he would really want her to. He didn't want to see Hannah hurt, and he knew she would be if Emily was unavailable to her or suddenly seemed disinterested in her. He made a mistake in not setting clear rules and boundaries from the very beginning, and now Hannah thought the door to Emily was always open to her.

"Dad?"

Steve's eyes widened and darted to the open doorway when his daughter's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. It sounded like she was downstairs looking for him in the living room. The nighttime cough syrup she took before bed should have knocked her out for the night. What was she doing up?

Emily glanced at him in surprise. "I thought she was in bed?"

"She was," Steve said. He felt like he was quickly losing control of the situation.

"Dad?" Hannah called again. It sounded like she was getting closer.

"I'm in here," Steve called out weakly. He knew the girl would ask what her birth mother was doing there, and he didn't know what he was going to tell her. This was not going according to plan for him.

Within seconds the pajama-clad teenager appeared in the doorway. "Dad, I – Emily? What are you doing here?" Without waiting for an answer, the girl shifted her gaze to her dad. "Did you change your mind?"

Steve stifled a groan. Of course she would think that. "No. We were just– we were just talking."

"Are you going to ask her if I can stay with her?" Hannah pressed on.

Emily's eyes widened. Did she hear that correctly? She frowned in confusion, looking from her daughter to Steve as she waited for someone to explain.

"No. Hannah, what are you doing up?" Steve said in an exasperated tone. It had been a very long day for the father, and it was about to get longer.

"I threw up," Hannah said miserably. "Should I take another Tamiflu?"

Steve took a moment to really look at his daughter and realized she looked worse for the wear from just half an hour ago when she went up to bed. He walked over to where she was standing and rested the palm of his hand on her forehead for a second. She was burning up. Hannah looked up at him through glassy eyes as she waited for the verdict.

"I think your fever's gone up," Steve told her worriedly. "Didn't you take Tylenol before bed?"

"I did, but I'm pretty sure I threw it up, too," Hannah replied ruefully.

"Okay, come here." Steve led the way into the kitchen, where the thermometer, Hannah's prescriptions, the bottle of Tylenol, and the bottle of over the counter cough syrup were all out on the kitchen counter. It looked like the cold and flu aisle of the pharmacy. He had Hannah sit down at the kitchen table and handed her the thermometer.

Hannah inserted the thermometer into the ear that wasn't infected and waited for the thermometer to beep. "103.8," the girl read aloud from the digital display for her dad's benefit.

Not knowing what to do, Emily had waited a moment before following them and was now hanging back awkwardly in the kitchen. She knew her daughter was a teenager and had been sick before, but it was the first time she was seeing Hannah sick like this, and she felt the rising panic of a new parent when she heard how high Hannah's fever was. That wasn't exactly a low fever.

One glance at Steve told Emily her current level of worry wasn't unfounded. He wore an expression that said oh, shit but refrained from actually saying what he was clearly thinking.

Steve was silently debating whether he needed to take Hannah to the emergency room. Her fever was going up instead of down. That was the wrong direction. "I'm going to call Aunt Karen and see what she says we should do," he told his kid after a moment. 'Aunt' Karen wasn't really Hannah's aunt. She was a family friend and a nurse like Sarah was. They worked together until Sarah quit to be a stay-at-home mom.

Steve started heading back to his office, where he knew he had left his cell phone. He paused when he saw Emily as if just realizing she was still there. He saw the same overwhelming worry and concern he felt reflected in the woman's dark eyes as he passed her.

Knowing she would probably have to take more medicine when she already had an upset stomach, Hannah decided to get a Coke and see if it would help settle her stomach. She went to stand up and stumbled slightly, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden.

Emily saw how unsteady Hannah was on her feet and rushed to her side, wrapping an arm around the girl to steady her. Emily looked at her daughter with concern. "Hey, you okay?"

"I'm okay," Hannah said, offering the worried woman a halfhearted smile that wasn't very convincing.

"Sit down," Emily instructed gently, hovering nervously even after Hannah was seated safely back in the chair.

When Steve returned, he was on the phone, rattling off the girl's symptoms.

"She's lightheaded, too," Emily told him quietly.

Steve repeated what Emily had just told him to Karen. He listened carefully to the nurse's advice, nodding along as the woman spoke.

When he hung up, Steve looked at his daughter apprehensively, knowing she wasn't going to like this. "Okay, we have got to get your fever down. If you can't keep Tylenol down, we need to try an alternative way of lowering your temperature," he said grimly.

"What does that even mean?" Hannah asked.

Karen thought he should have Hannah sit in a bath of lukewarm water to help cool her off without giving her any more medicine. The only problem was that she didn't recommend leaving a kid who was lightheaded alone in the bathtub. Steve looked every bit as uncomfortable as his fourteen year old daughter when he relayed the advice to her.

"What?! I don't need help taking a bath!" Hannah protested, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment and indignation.

"I know you don't need help taking a bath," Steve told his teenager in a placating tone. "But if you're lightheaded, you could pass out." He took a breath, and, swallowing his pride, turned to Emily. "Is there any way you can…help?" He asked awkwardly. He wouldn't ask unless he was really desperate.

"Yes, of course," Emily answered graciously.

It didn't seem like she was getting out of this, and her birth mother was the better alternative - though not by much – so Hannah decided not to argue even though she wanted to. Instead, she clamped her mouth shut.

The teenager stood up slowly, knowing it wouldn't help her case if she actually did pass out. She kept her angry gaze on the floor as she walked by her dad on her way to the stairs. She couldn't believe he was making her do this.

Emily stayed close behind her daughter on the staircase, ready to catch the girl if she got lightheaded again.

Hannah went through her bedroom to the en suite bathroom, flipped the lights on, and started running the water for a bath. She didn't look at Emily once the whole time. She knew it wasn't her birth mother's fault, but that didn't make this any better. She was fourteen, not four. She didn't need her mother to make sure she didn't drown in the bathtub.

The pajama-clad teenager hesitated where she stood in the middle of the bathroom with her arms crossed in front of her protectively. She didn't want to get undressed in front of Emily, even if Emily was her mother. The whole situation was totally and completely embarrassing for the young teenage girl.

"You can wear a bathing suit if it would make you more comfortable," Emily offered a solution to help preserve the girl's modesty. She knew most girls developed a sudden sense of modesty in their pre-teens that lasted until they were a little older than Hannah was now. Emily had to get over it when she was fifteen – she lost any sense of modesty she ever had when she got pregnant for the first time. The intrusive exam at the clinic took care of that.

Hannah finally met her birth mother's gaze with a grateful look. That would definitely make her more comfortable.

She wouldn't have been happy about this, even if it was the mother who actually raised her in the bathroom with her instead of the mother who gave birth to her. She didn't want anyone in the bathroom with her while she was taking a bath.

While Hannah was changing into her swimsuit in her bedroom, Emily tested the temperature of the water and adjusted the taps. If the water was too warm, it wouldn't be much help in cooling Hannah down.

The tub was full by the time Hannah returned wearing blue bikini bottoms and trying to hold the matching blue bikini top in place to cover herself.

"Emily? Can you tie my top in the back?" Hannah asked a little shyly. She moved to stand in front of the woman and waited expectantly.

Emily carefully moved the girl's hair out of the way and tied the top of the halter-style bikini top securely at the neck.

"Thank you," Hannah said before stepping forward and dipping a tentative foot in the water. She immediately stepped back out of the tub. "It's so cold," she complained, glancing over her shoulder at Emily.

"It's not, actually," Emily told her. "You're just hot so it feels colder than it really is to you. It will help you cool down. It won't be so bad once you get in. You'll get used to it."

Hannah took a deep breath and climbed into the tub.

Emily leaned back against the vanity as her daughter soaked in the tepid water. She kept a quiet watch on the girl so she would see if Hannah looked like she might pass out at any point. She was ready to swoop in if needed but only if needed. She was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

"What were you and my dad talking about?" Hannah asked curiously.

"How much we love you," Emily teased the girl.

Hannah rolled her eyes and gave the woman a look. "No. I'm serious."

"So am I," Emily told her kid lightly.

Much to her frustration, Hannah never managed to get what they were really talking about out of Emily. The teenager knew it was about her – she just didn't know what it was about her. Not knowing was driving her crazy.

When Hannah finally gave up on questioning her and asked if she could get out of the tub, Emily grabbed the bath towel that was hanging on a hook on the back of the closed bathroom door. She draped the towel around her daughter's shoulders as soon as the girl stepped out of the tub. She waited for just a moment to make sure Hannah was steady on her feet. When she was satisfied that the girl wasn't going to pass out on her, Emily decided to give her some privacy to get dressed.

After the woman stepped out of the bathroom, the wet, shivering girl wasted no time peeling her swimsuit off. She left the pajamas she'd been wearing earlier on the bathroom floor and grabbed a clean Northwestern t-shirt and matching flannel purple and white checkered pajama bottoms from her dresser drawer.

"Northwestern?" Emily said when she saw the shirt Hannah was wearing. "A good friend of mine went there."

"My mom's family is all in Chicago," Hannah said. "And Northwestern has a good pre-med program."

"It's a great school," Emily told her.

"Where'd you go?" Hannah asked curiously.

"Yale." Emily gave her sick kid an assessing look. "Do you feel any better?"

"Not really," Hannah answered honestly.

But when Hannah took her temperature again at Steve's insistence, both adults were pleased it had already gone down by one degree.

The next morning Hannah's fever was all the way down to 101.5.

Steve was waiting to see if he would even be comfortable leaving his sick kid. He wouldn't have been if her fever was still as high as it had been. But once it seemed like she was on the mend, he gave in and called Emily. After the night before, it seemed silly not to. He knew it would have been a lot more uncomfortable for him and for Hannah if Emily hadn't been there. It had never even occurred to the exhausted father to have his daughter wear a swimsuit in the bathtub. He was a big enough person to admit Emily had been a huge help. He called to thank Emily and give her an update on how Hannah was doing.

"She's not quite well enough to go snowboarding, but she's much better than she was last night," he tried to joke before getting serious. "Look, I told her I wasn't going to leave her here and go skiing, but she wants me to go without her." He explained about the resort's cancellation policy and the phone call Hannah overheard. "She asked if she could stay with you."

"I can take her, but only if you're comfortable leaving her with me," Emily said cautiously.

"I can't say that I'm entirely comfortable with it, but Hannah is," Steve said. "And I'm…I'm getting there."

Or he was trying to anyway.

A/N: As always, thank you to everyone who read and reviewed. I had two requests for Derek Morgan. I added in the Northwestern t-shirt and the friend who went to Northwestern as a nod to him. I may be able to come up with some ideas to include him in a chapter or two :)