Okay, here's another chapter, hopefully I can make up for the long wait by giving you more than one installment at once. This story should be finished within in a few days and then I'll be back to "Trial by Fire." I'm all for carrying Christmas feelings all the way into January, so hopefully this will do that for you as well. Again, thanks for reading!
Christmas at Quantico
Chapter Five – Prentiss
"I don't want a lot for Christmas,
there is just one thing I need,
I don't care about the presents
underneath the Christmas tree,
I just want you for my own,
more than you will ever know,
Make my wish come true,
Baby all I want for Christmas is you…"
"All I Want for Christmas" (Mariah Carey)
'Well, this sure is a fine way to spend the holidays,' Emily Prentiss thought to herself in disappointment, sitting on the couch in her apartment, staring glumly at the lone green and red-striped stocking hanging from her fireplace mantle. 'Christmas night and all alone.'
She was dressed cozily in a powder-blue long-sleeved thermal shirt, brown stretch leggings that hugged her long, slim legs warmly, and creamy, thick woolen socks that stretched back up over her leggings to mid-calf as she sat staring into the crackling fire and listening to Mariah Carey's classic "Merry Christmas" cd on the stereo. One foot was tucked under her and the other propped on her coffee table as she sipped a flute of deep red Merlot and alternately bit into chocolate-covered pretzels that her aunt had sent her while she struggled to compose what was going to be a late Christmas letter on the legal pad balanced on her knee. 'Classy,' her sarcastic inner voice mocked her in her mind, 'Wow, Em, you really know how to celebrate in style.'
Snorting at the ridiculous thought that she was tempted to start defending herself against her own inner voice, she sighed, sat forward and plopped the notepad down on the table, running her hands through her hair, and letting out a frustrated breath before leaning her head in her hands. What was she going to put in a Christmas letter anyway? 'Another year with the BAU, I really enjoy my job…Yesterday we caught a sociopathic couple who were teaching their child how to kidnap and brainwash his future wife…' Shaking her head, she realized just how preposterous it sounded; certainly not the type of light correspondence her mother had once encouraged her to keep up as a young girl.
Not that it mattered, she'd rarely managed to please her mother in her whole life. Even now, her mother was halfway across the world, at a new position in Switzerland, working as an ambassador again. She'd called her daughter a week ago, ecstatic with the news that she had once again found a political opening. She had told Emily that she couldn't possibly leave her new post so soon to come home for Christmas, wished her a 'Happy Holiday,' and Emily hadn't heard from her since. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but she had hoped that someday, as an adult, her mother might view her as more of an equal or a compatriot and actually want to see her, and then Christmas might be different than it was for her growing up. Obviously that had been a pipe dream.
And her father, who had always been the more doting, interested, and involved parent to her was never around now either. Just as Emily had by the time she'd gone off to college and never gone back home to live, her father had gotten tired of being little more than a prop – a part of the perfect exterior picture Ambassador Prentiss presented to the world of an exemplary political figure juggling work and her family with apparent ease. Too bad it was much more polished façade for show than actuality. Her father had called last evening and they'd had a wonderful, hour-long talk, but it was not the same as seeing him in person, and it didn't keep her from sitting here alone when it really mattered.
Sighing, she stood, stretched the kinks from her back and idly roamed over to her Christmas tree, staring at the glowing lights and the assortment of various ornaments from countries all over the world that she had been to throughout her life. They were beautiful and she always enjoyed finding just the one to remember the place by, ever since she was sixteen and had found the beautifully ornate stained glass star that she bought in the Ukraine and that still crowned the top of her tree each year. It was all pretty and festive, but she knew, more than she would ever admit, that she wanted someone to share it all with. Not just Christmas ornaments, but her home, the holidays…her life. It was all she had ever wanted, because even as a child and with her own family, it was something she'd never had.
Then, in a split-second decision, she knew what she had to do. The realization came to her as suddenly as if it had always been there, hidden in the back of her mind, and she had just now finally let it surface. She didn't have to be sitting here alone, and there was someone that she knew would understand the way she felt quite well. Maybe better than anyone else ever had or would; she only had to stop hiding and let him in. It might not lead to a lasting love affair or the passionate kissing at midnight she always found herself dreaming of and wishing for more this time of year (she didn't know if he had ever even thought of her in that light) but for once she wasn't going to bury what she was feeling and what she wanted. She was at least going to find out – if nothing else, neither of them would be sitting alone and they would each have someone to talk to. It was time to find out.
Emily stood quickly, a determined look taking over her features. She marched resolutely into her bedroom, grabbed her brush and pulled it through her hair, then she moved into the entryway to pull on the ridiculous furry Ugg boots she'd known were juvenile when she'd seen them, and yet had been impossible for her to resist buying. Shaking her head at her reflection in the hall mirror, she took a deep breath before she could back out, grabbed her purse and keys, put on her coat and toboggan, and went out into the snowy night.
It was time to stop denying what she wanted and hiding the unhappiness she felt because of it. She was going to do something about it right now.