In this chapter we see an old friend of Emily's, an old friend Derek doesn't like very much.
One
My Best
And I could swear I hear your steps
Down the hall echoes a past
That leaves an ache,
It's never left
Cause I gave you my best
-Vanessa Carlton
Emily sat at her desk and looked at the clock, just over four hours until they left for Italy. John was driving Elizabeth up to the BAU office and then they were off to the airport.
"Are you okay?" Reid asked sitting back at his desk.
"Yeah, I'm just stressed." She sighed.
"Well I would be too, if I recall your mother was um, not pleasant." Reid grimaced. "No offense."
"None taken, she isn't a pleasant person and I'm more stressed about my daughter at the moment she's with Johnny…"
"Whats wrong? Is he not good with kids?" Reid frowned.
"No he's fine with kids Lizi just isn't good with him." She bit her lip and looked around anxiously.
"Oh, is this the John we met a few years ago?" He said.
"Yeah, John Cooley, oh there he is." Emily stood and walked, as best she could, over to John. "Hi Johnny, thank you for getting her from Day Care."
"It's fine Emily, she's a good kid, she slept the whole way here." John smiled, setting Elizabeth on the floor.
"Lizi, no!" Emily said as the small child started off towards Hotch's office. Emily tried to catch her but Lizi was much too fast and in Emily's current state it would've been impossible anyway.
"Whoa." Hotch chuckled as she stepped out of his office and was immediately hit by Lizi.
"I am so sorry sir!" Emily said, making it to where Hotch was, he'd picked up Lizi.
"No, it's my fault I shouldn't have set her on the ground." John apologized coming up behind her.
"It's alright." Hotch smiled. "Here, this is yours." He smiled and handed Elizabeth to Emily.
Before Emily was able to position Lizi correctly Derek came from behind her and took her. "I can get this. Hello John."
"Evening Derek." John said. "I'll get the car seat."
The two had never gotten along well, John was laid back, and tended to down play everything bad that ever happened. Derek was always on alert, always waiting for the next unsub, the next attack. It was hard enough for Emily to handle Lizi now that Lizi could walk and Emily was pregnant, but if both John and Derek were in the mix she felt like just throwing her hands up in surrender.
When the two were around it was like three kids instead of one, John and Derek were always arguing about one thing or another and she usually had to mediate. It was times like those when she missed Matthew's level headed-ness, he could keep situations civil, she had a tendency to make them worse.
"Come on Derek, and be nice." She pleaded.
"Why?" He pouted.
"Because I said so." She snapped.
He had faced some of the worst people alive and yet it was a pregnant Emily that really scared him. She was happy one minute and upset the next, and the last two months since Hotch had put her strictly on family questioning duty she'd been miserable at work as well. He knew she was also frustrated about how much harder it as for her to take care of Elizabeth, and since the entire team was more or less forcing her to take maternity leave after they returned he knew it would only be a matter of time until she lost it. Oh joy.
That wasn't the hard part though the hard part was how insistent she'd been on doing everything herself, she wouldn't even let him make her breakfast and if he let her sleep past 5:30 am she would be livid. He'd tried everything, getting JJ – who'd just gotten back from her maternity leave – to talk to her about the stress this would put on her body.
It wasn't just getting up early, every day she would insist on putting Lizi in the stroller and going on long – sometimes two or three miles – walks. He'd tried having Garcia trick her into spending less time bent over her work and more time relaxing with her. He'd had Reid give her a long lecture on what negative effects of that much exercise could have during a pregnancy. Hotch had even made her take a week off he'd claimed it was to make sure Lizi saw her enough but even that hadn't fooled Emily. Rossi had been more than willing to give her some extra days.
Even John had talked to her, and him asking John for anything was a big step as John drove Derek insane. After an hour of John lecturing her Emily had merely looked at Derek and raised her eyebrows as if to say 'really? Really? You brought him into this?'
His most recent trial was her friend Matthew's younger sister – Lila – who had five kids and was very experienced in the pregnancy department. After that all Emily had done was smile at him and inform him that as nice as it was to speak to Lila it didn't mean she was going to use the 30 vacation days she had.
As they boarded the plane the one thing Emily would let Derek do was handle Elizabeth, who was exhausted and very fussy. As soon as the plane was off the ground Lizi was asleep and he looked over at Emily. She was clearly very uncomfortable, she kept shifting, trying in vain to get comfortable.
"Emi, are you okay?" He asked.
"Just a bit uncomfortable." She said.
"How can I help?" He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him.
"Well you can start by moving the arm rest between us." She said, he chuckled and pulled the arm rest up and she scooted closer to him.
"Better?" He smiled.
"Much." She whispered, yawning. He pulled a blanket from the overhead compartment and draped it over her and soon she was asleep.
Unable to sleep himself Derek put his headphones in and sat back against the seat. After about an hour he heard Elizabeth wake and start babbling, he pulled his headphones out and took her out of her seat.
"Hey Princess, you hungry?" He smiled and set Lizi on his lap. He got some applesauce from the flight attendant and started feeding her the applesauce. He felt Emily shift next to him.
"Mama?" Lizi asked, her big brown eyes looking at him.
"No baby, we're going to let Mama sleep, she's tired." He whispered. "We have to be quiet though we're on the plane."
"Mama!" She whimpered. He glanced at Emily who was starting to stir at the sound of Elizabeth's tiny voice.
"No baby we're going to let Mama sleep." He sighed holding Lizi close to him and rubbing her back gently.
"Mama…" She whimpered again this time her tiny hand reached out and grabbed Emily's hair.
"No, no, no, let go Lizi." He said. He took the hand that had Emily's hair and gently opened the hand that held her hair. She looked up at him, her dark eyes sad as though say 'why did you do that?' "Please don't look at me like that baby, I know you want Mama, but Mama is tired." He whispered rocking her as best he could. "It's okay baby, we'll be there soon."
