A/N: Thank you for to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter!
Chapter 25
With a quick glance at the clock on her nightstand, Emily realized she slept in later than she normally did, but then again, she didn't usually stay up until 2:00 in the morning. They got back to her condo a little after 1:00, and it took more than half an hour for Hannah to stop crying once her tears started. Emily held her until she was done crying, which meant Emily didn't crawl into her own bed until around 2:00.
Even when Emily was working a case, they usually called it quits by midnight unless there were extenuating circumstances. Late nights were a part of the job, but all-nighters were rare - they still needed to get some sleep if they were going to continue to be effective. And, as hard as the job was sometimes, nothing Emily saw in her work was as emotionally draining as seeing her own child hurting because, with Hannah, it was personal for her.
It was almost 9:00 am already. Now that she wasn't waking up early coughing, the earliest Hannah had woken up was 10:00 am and the latest was almost noon. Emily half-expected the teenager to try to stay holed up in the guest room all day – not that she was going to let her. But she knew that after last night Hannah would probably be embarrassed and might not know how to act around her.
Knowing the teenager might not come out of the guest room willingly, Emily got herself ready and then went on a quick coffee run with the hope that Hannah's favorite coffee drink would be enough to draw her out.
From where she sat on the couch enjoying her own decaf coffee, Emily listened carefully for any sounds coming from the guest room. It helped that when she finally left her physically and emotionally exhausted daughter in the early hours of the morning, Emily left the door to the guest room cracked open a little. She heard the first stirrings a little before 10:30…the rustling of the covers and the box springs on the older bed in the guest room squeaking when her daughter's weight shifted on it as the girl moved.
Emily waited several minutes to see if Hannah was going to come out on her own. When it was clear she wasn't coming out, Emily went to get her.
"Hannah?" Emily called, standing just outside the bedroom door.
When Hannah didn't respond, Emily went into the room uninvited. Her daughter was lying perfectly still under the covers, but Emily had heard the covers rustling mere seconds ago.
Emily walked over to the bed and stood near Hannah's head. Even though she hadn't had a fever for a few days now, Hannah was still a little congested. Every time she fell asleep in the living room on the couch, she slept with her mouth open. With her sinus congestion, she couldn't breathe very well so she inevitably ended up breathing through her mouth at night. Her mouth was closed now though. Her lips were pressed together in a tight line, the corners of her mouth tugging downward in a small frown as she tried hard to stay still under intense scrutiny from her birth mother. It wasn't the relaxed face of a kid who was sleeping peacefully.
Emily smiled knowingly as she looked down at her daughter. "I know you're not really sleeping."
Hannah gave up and opened her eyes. She didn't sit up in the bed, but she turned her head to look at Emily with a red face and rather sheepish expression. She was already embarrassed enough to face her birth mother after literally crying on the woman like a much younger kid – that was the whole reason she stayed in the guest room and pretended like she was still sleeping in the first place. Now she was even more embarrassed to be called out for faking sleep. "How'd you know?" The fourteen year old wondered.
Emily stared at her kid a little incredulously, but there was amusement in her eyes. "Like I'm gonna tell you," Emily said with a slight scoff. "If I tell you what gave you away, you won't do it again. Then how will I know you're faking?" Emily asked teasingly. It was a rhetorical question, and she moved on without waiting for an answer. "I got you a coffee. Peppermint mocha, right?"
It was only then that Hannah noticed Emily had a takeaway coffee cup in her hand. The young teenager finally sat up, scooting back in the bed so her back was resting against the headboard. "Thank you," she said gratefully, reaching for the proffered cup eagerly.
"Uh-uh. Sorry, but you have to actually get out of bed," Emily told her, moving the cup just out of reach. There was no way she was letting Hannah have it in bed. The whole point was to draw her kid out of the room she was currently holed up in.
At Emily's prompting, the disgruntled teenager reluctantly got out of bed and gave her an expectant look. When Emily handed the cup over, Hannah took a sip of the peppermint mocha and let out a satisfied sigh.
"Addict," Emily teased.
"I think I'm going through caffeine withdrawal," Hannah said seriously. "You have no caffeinated beverages of any kind here."
Emily rolled her eyes at her teenage daughter's dramatics, but she was smiling indulgently when she responded with, "You poor, deprived child."
"I haven't had a Coke in five days," Hannah told the woman.
"Is that a record for you?" Emily asked, mildly amused. Her kid never failed to entertain her.
"It is," Hannah said.
"Come on," Emily said with a soft chuckle. "I got breakfast, too." She threw an arm around her daughter's shoulders. She was pleased when the girl didn't attempt to disengage from her and allowed herself to be steered out of the room.
Hannah's face lit up when she saw the box from the bakery sitting on the kitchen counter. "You got cinnamon rolls? I love cinnamon rolls."
Emily smiled at her child's newfound enthusiasm. She had a feeling Hannah would like cinnamon rolls. The girl's sweet tooth rivaled her own.
"Yeah, well, you've been here five days and I haven't given you food poisoning with my cooking," Emily pointed out as if this were a major accomplishment, "but I thought I'd get something you weren't afraid to eat."
"I appreciate that," Hannah said dryly, glancing up at Emily. "Thank you."
They served themselves and sat down opposite each other at the kitchen table. Emily was going to wait until Hannah was situated and eating before trying to talk to her. It had been impossible to have an actual conversation with her when she was tearful. The young teenager hadn't been very coherent once her tears started.
"Are we going to pretend nothing happened last night or are we going to talk about it?" Emily began after a moment, deciding not to beat around the bush.
"Pretend nothing happened," Hannah answered hopefully even though she knew better. Emily wouldn't have brought it up if that was really an option. Emily was going to make her talk about it.
Emily sighed in frustration at her daughter's clear reluctance to talk to her. "Hannah, we need to talk about it. Am I really that horrible to talk to?"
Hannah instantly felt bad for making her birth mother feel that way. It wasn't that. It was just that she didn't want another lecture. She felt like the woman had made her displeasure very clear the night before and knew her dad wasn't going to be any happier with her. "Only when you're lecturing me," she told the older woman half-jokingly. "The rest of the time I like talking to you."
"Then why do I get the feeling you'd rather die of boredom or starvation in my guest room than talk to me?" Emily asked.
Hannah sighed resignedly. "What do you want to talk about? The advances in modern technology that will happen while I'm grounded for last night?" She quipped, hoping to garner a little bit of sympathy.
"No," Emily told her overly dramatic teenage daughter with just a hint of amusement in her voice. "We need to talk about last night. Or should I say this morning?" Emily gave the girl a pointed look as she referenced the time that they got in for the night. It was after 1:00 am so technically it was morning.
"I said I was sorry," Hannah said defensively.
"I know. You only apologized about a hundred times last night," Emily teased gently. "Look, Hannah, last night's the first time I've ever really gotten mad at you, and it probably won't be the last. But I'm not mad anymore. Really," she assured her kid who still looked a little on edge. "It's okay."
Hannah looked up from her half-eaten cinnamon roll, frowning in confusion. "Then what do we need to talk about?"
"You were really upset, honey," Emily replied cautiously. "Bottling your feelings up isn't good for you." That may be a little hypocritical of her to say, but it was also true. Emily had seen the effects bottling her emotions up had on her fourteen year old firsthand when Hannah got to her breaking point and all of the repressed feelings burst out in the form of tears. Emily hated seeing her daughter cry like that and knew she had to push the reticent teenager to talk. "Talking will help."
It had already helped. Emily just didn't know it yet.
It had been Emily's words that helped assuage Hannah's guilt… If you can't be there for your child, you want someone else to do everything you wish you could for her. It's what I wanted for you. And I have to believe it's what your mom would want now.
Hannah wondered if that was really how her adoptive mom would feel about Emily now. Emily seemed so sure that it was. And who would know better than her birth mother what it felt like to know someone else – another mom – was doing all of the things that she should have been doing?
Even though her adoptive mom was the only mom Hannah remembered, logically she knew she was Emily's daughter before she was ever Sarah Johnson's daughter. Hannah just hadn't ever really thought about it like that until Emily talked to her about choosing her adoptive parents. Hearing how her birth mother felt about the parents Hannah had grown up with helped her understand – as much as any fourteen year old could possibly understand anyway. The girl was not old enough to be a mother and couldn't really fathom the kind of selfless love Emily spoke of – the kind of love a mother felt for her child.
"It did help. My mom always knew what to say to make me feel better, and, somehow…last night you knew what to say to make me feel better, too," Hannah confessed a little shyly, still feeling awkward and embarrassed about having cried like a much younger child.
"Everything I said was true," Emily told her daughter.
"Last night aside," Hannah said ruefully, "things between you and me have been good. You've been pretty great, and I know I haven't – I haven't always made it easy." The fourteen year old was thinking about how her thoughts and feelings toward her birth mother had changed and what she really wanted. When she spoke again, it almost sounded like she was trying to justify her thoughts and feelings to herself. "You know, when I first found out who you really were, I couldn't help being curious about you. I just wanted to get to know you. That's all. I already had a mom. I didn't need another one. But…that's what you are."
"I know how much you loved your mom. And I know I'm not her," Emily said, referring to Sarah Johnson. Emily wanted to be very clear on that point. She knew her daughter was having a really hard time with the idea that Emily was taking Sarah's place in her life, but Emily was not a substitute or replacement for Hannah's adoptive mom. "We are two different people, and your relationship with me is going to be different from the relationship you had with her."
"But you're my mom, too," Hannah blurted out, not wanting to lose her new mother figure when she was just starting to accept that was what Emily was.
Considering how deeply conflicted Hannah was feeling about that very thing not even twenty-four hours ago, Emily didn't expect that acknowledgement from her. She was a little stunned by it. A spark of hope flared in Emily's heart, ignited by the pure, unadulterated love she had for her child. This was what she'd wanted all along. And there she had it, right from the girl herself - she was Hannah's mom, too.
"Yes, I am," Emily said, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "I love you, Hannah."
"Love you, too," the teenager mumbled in response, already going back to her breakfast.
After breakfast and showers, they set the Scrabble board up on the coffee table and played while streaming the first show that they both agreed on – Stranger Things – until it was time for Hannah to go home.
When she dropped Hannah off late that afternoon, Emily went in so she could talk to Steve. He heard them in the entryway and came out of the laundry room right away to greet them. "Hey," he said, smiling at them both but mainly at the sight of his daughter. "You're a sight for sore eyes. I missed you, angel," he told the girl as he pulled her in for a hug. He caught Emily's eyes over his daughter's head. "Thank you for taking her."
Emily shook her head. "You don't have to thank me. But, um, we do need to talk about last night."
"Uh-oh," Steve said, his smile faltering for the first time as he glanced down at Hannah. "What happened last night?" He asked warily.
"I was a little late," Hannah said as she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
Emily gave the girl an incredulous look, scoffing slightly. "A little? Try an hour." Emily was actually being generous there. Hannah had been an hour late when she finally called her back. She'd been more like an hour and a half late by the time they finally got back to Emily's place for the night.
"An hour? Hannah!" Steve scolded. "Not okay." It wasn't the first time the teenager had missed her curfew, but an hour was just ridiculous.
"I know," Hannah said sheepishly. "Emily already yelled at me."
"I didn't yell," Emily protested. "I…talked to you calmly."
Steve watched the exchange with surprise. He would have thought Emily would leave him to be the bad guy, but she didn't.
When he left her with Emily, the adoptive father was afraid his daughter would see her birth mother's house as more fun than their house because she didn't have to follow his rules there. To Emily's credit, she made Hannah ask him for permission to go to the party. She didn't just say yes. And, when Hannah missed the curfew he gave her, it sounded like Emily yelled at her – or, at the very least, scolded her. Hannah would know from this experience that staying at Emily's house wasn't a vacation from the rules. It wouldn't be somewhere for the teenager to run when she didn't like the rules or didn't want to be in trouble with him. That made the adoptive father feel a lot better about the situation.
"I hope you had fun because you won't be going to any parties anytime soon," Steve told the teenager. "Take your stuff upstairs. Go now," he urged when she hesitated. He wanted a moment alone with Emily and then they needed to get to the dog daycare where they boarded Alex before it closed.
Hannah said goodbye to Emily and took her bag up to her room, leaving the two adults alone.
Embarrassed that his kid got in trouble at someone else's house, Steve apologized to Emily as soon as Hannah was out of earshot. "I'm sorry. I can't believe she did that." He shook his head in complete disbelief. He didn't know what the fourteen year old could have been thinking.
"She was testing me," Emily said. "I assume she's grounded?"
"She is," Steve confirmed.
"What does that mean for me?" Emily questioned. "We talked about a set visitation schedule, but am I allowed to see her when she's grounded?"
"It depends on what you have in mind. Do you have any hard labor she can do?" Steve joked. Even though he hadn't really thought about how visitation would work when Hannah was grounded, he knew he had to give the woman a real answer, and he didn't really feel like he could say no. The visitation schedule was his idea, not hers. She was against it. Although he wasn't ready to admit it yet, the adoptive father was starting to realize that a set schedule was not a magic solution. "Yes, you can still take her to brunch on Saturday," he conceded wearily. "She's grounded from friends. You're not really a friend."
Unlike Hannah, Steve did not see Emily as Hannah's mom. Sarah was Hannah's mom. Sarah would always be her mom. But he did recognize that Emily wasn't just Hannah's friend. As far as he was concerned, Emily was…an adult that he trusted with his daughter.
A/N: The next few chapters won't be nearly as OC-centric. The BAU team will be back at work
