Lessons Learned

It was only her first case with the BAU and Emily was already feeling like a bad mother.

By the barest of margins, she'd missed Declan's first school play. She'd desperately wanted to go, but she couldn't exactly leave work early, considering she was literally in Guantanamo Bay. By the time the plane touched down in DC, the play was over and she was sure she'd likely lost Declan's trust for years to come. She may or may not have cried in the car on the way home.

When she got home, Ian had left her a note telling her he had it covered and not to worry, but she decided she'd worry anyway because that's just who she was as a person. She was irrationally jealous of Ian sometimes because he got to be the one that stayed home with Declan while she was out hunting monsters; she knew it was the only way, Ian couldn't exactly go out and get a nine to five with his history, but that didn't stop her from being bitter about the whole thing.

Declan had pitched a minor fit about her starting work because he was afraid of exactly this happening. He was very much a Mommy's boy and he wanted her to be there for every single important moment in his life (his idea of an important moment didn't always match hers, considering that just last week he'd made her take a picture of him with a sandwich he'd made all by himself...she'd obliged and didn't even point out the jam on every surface within the boy's reach). She'd repeatedly assured him she wouldn't miss anything important and even pinky swore on the matter and now she'd made a liar of herself.

She'd barely had time to make herself a late dinner when she heard Ian's car pulling into the driveway. "Declan Oisin Doyle, stay in your seat or so help me, God..." she heard Ian threaten, trailing off because he didn't have a PG way to end the sentence. At five the boy should really know better, but she forgave him because he was excited to see her and if that made her a pushover, well, she was okay with that.

"Daddy," the boy scoffed like he knew the threat was empty. He was getting a little sassy for Ian's liking and Emily would never admit that she found the entire thing rather hilarious while simultaneously living in fear of his teenage years. If he grew up to be like either one of them, they were in for a hard row to hoe.

Declan came bursting through the door still in costume, clambered into Emily's lap and she prepared herself for a hug, but he instead hollered in her face, "Mommy!" Then, he proceeded to start eating the macaroni and cheese she'd made for herself. Her face fell a little at the lackluster greeting, but his back was turned so he didn't notice.

He wasn't ordinarily this loud and obnoxious – in spite of Ian's overwhelming personality, his son was quiet and laidback most of the time – so Emily knew the boy had too much sugar running through his system.

Ian came trudging into the kitchen shortly after, looking every bit his age and then some. He sank into a chair and covered his eyes with his hand and for a split second, Emily thought he might be crying. She knew better than to say anything before he'd had a strong glass of whiskey, though, so she didn't comment. Ian may have wanted a large family, but he just was not meant to be around more than five children at a time.

"Mommy! I did the best job in the school play!" Declan said between bites of pasta, cheese sauce already smeared around his mouth.

"I'm sure you did, Buddy," Emily said, trying (and failing) to sneak a bite of her dinner around him. She pressed a kiss to his head. "I wish I could've been there to see it." There would be other plays, she knew, other soccer games and field trips and graduations, but this one was the first and that mattered to her. She didn't want to set a precedent of her missing important moments.

"It's okay," he said with a magnanimous shrug and a mouthful of food. "I'm not mad." And it felt like a knife through her heart. Upset and anger she could handle, but her son not wanting her? Not needing her? She didn't think she could survive that. "I was mad, but Daddy took me for ice cream after." If the orange and black smear staining the front of his shirt was any evidence, he had the tiger flavour she never let him get for precisely that reason.

Emily gave Ian a stern look and he just shrugged like it couldn't be helped. She couldn't decide if she was mad that he took their son for ice cream before dinner or that she was only worth an ice cream cone in her son's eyes.

"You bribed him to love me again with an ice cream cone?" she asked, one brow quirked somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

"An ice cream cone saved my sanity," he said deadpan, pouring himself a generous tumbler of whiskey. "I sincerely hope he hasn't been bitten by the acting bug because if I never have to go to another one of those, it'll be too soon." He tossed back a healthy swig of the amber liquid like it was the fountain of youth and he was taking his dying breath.

Emily knew Ian loved his son more than life itself - he did - but he also wasn't exactly cut out for all the little details of parenting, like silently suffering through terrible kindergarten plays and then acting like it was akin to watching Brando perform Streetcar.

"I'm so jealous," she said with all sincerity, resigning herself to the fact that she wasn't going to get any of her dinner.

"Mommy! Mommy, are you listening to me?" Declan demanded, all benevolent dictator in a cardboard crown. He clanged his fork against the table to get her attention.

"Hanging on every word," she promised.

"We're learning fairy tales, so we did The Paper Bag Princess and I was the Prince, even though I wanted to be the dragon 'cause the Prince isn't very nice and at the end the Princess gets to say Bum!" He dissolved into peals of giggles and Emily couldn't help but chuckle along with him, giving Ian a your son is fucking weird expression. "We singed–"

"Sang," she corrected.

"–singed," he repeated in spite of her correction, "songs and everyone clapped. And then Joey falled–"

"Fell."

"–off the stage."

"Was he hurt?"

"No. So it was funny," Declan said seriously. He nodded once, satisfied with his assessment. "Everyone laughed."

"Declan!" she reprimanded. "That's unkind. You wouldn't want people to laugh if you fell and hurt yourself."

"What?" he said, seeming genuinely confused, "Daddy said it was funny. He laughed."

"Ian..." she groaned, rolling her eyes.

He smiled at her over the rim of his glass. "What?" he says, bewildered by her annoyance. "It was. He landed on his back and couldn't get back up again."

She just shook her head, sighing dramatically because this was the man she'd given up her career for, the man she'd changed her entire life for. A man who, despite having previously been an internationally wanted criminal, had become a stay-at-home dad who went to school plays and bribed her son into loving her again so she could have the career she'd spent the better part of her adult life working towards. And she was willing to bet it probably was pretty funny to watch a child in a cardboard dragon costume fall on the floor like a turtle, so she was going to let his immature laughter slide.

At bedtime, Emily contorted herself to fit next to Declan in his bottom bunk at his insistence. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but she still hadn't quite forgiven herself, so she considered that part of her penance.

They read The Paper Bag Princess so Declan could read his parts so it would feel like she was there and Emily appreciated his attempt to make her feel better. He was still wearing his cardboard crown, along with his Spiderman pyjamas because 'Spiderman could be a prince if he wanted to, Mommy'.

Afterwards, they took turns yelling, "HEY DRAGOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN!" until Ian stuck his head into the room and looked at them like they were nuts, causing Declan to giggle uproariously.

As they settled into sleepy silence, Declan whispered, "I was really mad at you today. Really mad. Really really mad. I told Daddy I was never gonna talk to you again 'cause you lied. I said the dragon should eat you up 'stead of the Prince. But Daddy said not to be mad at you 'cause you didn't mean it and then he got me ice cream."

"It's okay if you want to be mad at me, Schnecke." The boy had gone through a period where he found snails to be the most interesting thing in the world, much to Emily's chagrin, so she'd started using the German word for snail as a nickname for him and he was eternally delighted by it. "You're allowed to feel what you feel. I was mad at myself too and I'm really sorry I didn't keep my promise. I'll try not to do it again, but I'm not going to promise because sometimes I'm going to miss things and disappoint you and I hope you'll forgive me again." She didn't add that if it took ice cream to forgive her every time, she might start taking it personally.

He shrugged and burrowed under the covers until only his eyes were peeking out above the quilt. "I'm done being mad now. Can you read Mortimer?" Mortimer was his second favourite because they got to yell, "MORTIMER, BE QUIET!" His third favourite was Mud Puddle because they got to yell, "HEY MUD PUDDLE!"

She was well and truly exhausted by the time she crawled into bed next to Ian. "I'm still a good mother, right?" she asked, snuggling into his side so that he could wrap an arm around her.

He kissed the top of her head. "Of course you are, Love," he said like it was the most ridiculous question in the world. "You're the only mother he's ever known and he loves you like crazy."

"Even when I screw up?" she asked.

"Maybe especially then because he sees that you're human too."

"What am I the rest of the time?" she asked with a quirked brow.

"You're a super hero. You're his super hero. He told all his friends that you weren't there because you were catching bad guys like Wonder Woman."

"Really?" she asked with a half-laugh, half-sob because nothing got her quite so emotional as her son.

He nodded. "That boy loves you more than you will ever know."

"And what about you?"

"I'd love you more if you dressed up like Wonder Woman," he said a look of complete seriousness on his face, one hand wandering up her thigh.

She punched him in the shoulder, but kissed him anyway. "Maybe tomorrow," she conceded because she's not opposed to a little role playing, but she's exhausted and her throat is sore from yelling, "HEY DRAGOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN."

She doesn't know how she ended up with this life, this strange chaotic messy suburban life of school plays and macaroni and cheese, but she thanks God every day that she has it.

Ian's smirk is entirely too mischievous for her liking, but he kisses her chastely anyway as he whispers good night against her lips.