The weekend before Emily returned to some of her consulting work at Derek's encouragement, she expressed a lot of hesitation at leaving him home alone. He had paperwork to fill out and things he needed to do for his contractor's license, Fran would visit, but it would hardly fill his days. He could keep Caleb home with him a little later in the mornings and pick him up earlier from Judy's house, but they both felt like his routine of going to her house during the day was important for Caleb; Judy had him in a gymnastics class and they had regular play dates with other children Caleb's age, the children of Judy's other friends. They didn't want to take Caleb away from that.
On Saturday they left Caleb with Fran and took Serena with them to look for a new vehicle for Derek. He settled on a full-size pick-up truck, since he'd likely be needing one for work soon. Then, on Sunday, after contemplating some more about Derek being home the next week, she pitched an idea to him, which he immediately liked, and they told the kids who who couldn't contain their excitement. They went to the animal shelter that Sunday and came home with a cute ten month old mutt, part boxer, who was friendly and loved the kids, and loved to run. They named her Aurora, and Derek became hopelessly attached to that dog in an instant; they ran for miles together every day.
They moved through the end of October with the team over on Sunday evenings, and Serena and Caleb excitedly celebrating Halloween with Henry and Jack. Emily continued to put in ten hours a week at the BAU, and at first it was strange and sad without Derek there, but she admitted that she loved that part of her life just for herself. Being out of the BAU didn't seem to bother Derek. If anything, he was more relaxed and far happier. He loved being home more with the kids, loved being there in the afternoons, playing with Caleb and helping Serena with homework for her online classes. Serena, who didn't really have a care in the world about keeping any particular pace with her academic advancement, started from ground zero with Derek in Spanish, teaching him the same way Emily had taught her. Both Emily and Derek loved that he was home every night and sleeping in their bed. Sometimes he'd come home from therapy and be a little vacant, but after a run or playing with the kids or talking with Emily, he'd bounce back.
It was the first week in November when Emily was driving towards home early one afternoon and she received a phone call from an attorney based in DC. Elizabeth Prentiss was dead; she was diagnosed with stage four uterine cancer the previous June and rapidly declined. She'd had time to make sure all of her affairs were in order, though. As per her request, her body was quickly cremated and would be placed next to Emily's father's ashes in a mausoleum in Italy. Aside from an account that the attorney would manage to take care of any final expenses and his fees, she'd left everything to Emily, and it was all in liquid assets in a single account at this point and ready to go. The federal inheritance tax had already been taken out. The attorney just needed Emily to come in, sign some paperwork and pick up the cashier's check.
The only immediate emotion Emily felt at her mother's passing was relief that she no longer had to worry about that woman making a reappearance in her life. She'd let Elizabeth Prentiss go a long time ago, and though Emily didn't like to give the feeling of hate any place in her life, what she felt for her mother came close to that. Emily had some reservations about the money; she couldn't figure out her mother's motivations at leaving it all to her. When the attorney started rattling off numbers from various accounts and investments, Emily had to pull the car over for a few seconds to give herself a moment to snap back to reality.
She asked the attorney if now would be a good time to come in; she had just finished some cognitive interviews in Fairfax and had time to make the trip into DC. The attorney told her that would be fine. Emily called Derek and asked him to get Serena from her school and Henry from his, that she was running behind. She didn't want to tell him anything over the phone.
When Emily arrived at the office, the attorney handed her an envelope. Inside was a note from her mother, just five words. I'm sorry for everything, Emily.
Emily blinked back tears at that. Though she would have denied any contact from her mother over the past several years, knowing in the end that her mother was sorry for everything left Emily feeling surprised and a bit empathetic. The attorney showed her a copy of the will and the name Emily Morgan kept jumping out at her; her mother had kept track of her at least somewhat these past few years. Then the attorney handed her the cashier's check.
"I told Elizabeth that there were better, more financially sound ways to do this, but she wanted to do it this way. She said she had spent the better part of forty years trying to control you and your life and she wanted to set you free quickly with no strings attached. As I said, the federal taxes have already been taken out of that amount and I'll send that check in along with the paperwork I'll have you sign today. Virginia imposes no state inheritance tax. You'll want to make an appointment with a financial planner and get that money divided up in investments and accounts so it's fully insured."
Emily alternated between staring at the attorney because of what he'd just said, and staring at the check. She couldn't really believe her mothers words or the check was real. This changed everything in terms of what Derek wanted to do while she got to keep her consulting work. Taking what remained from her mother's portion of her grandmother's trust for their family felt comfortable. And the portion that had come from her mother's investments could go to do some real good in the world at the hands of Derek.
She called their financial planner on the drive home to schedule an appointment. She spoke to the manager at the bank they used and asked to come in the next morning to meet with him. She made one last phone call to inquire about something, a gift she wanted to give someone else with a fraction of the money.
She returned home that afternoon to find Serena and Henry at the kitchen table, doing homework. Aurora came up to her, wagging her tail happily. Emily gave the dog a pat, dropped kisses on Serena and Henry's heads and went into the living room where Derek was snuggled up with Caleb watching a show on TV.
She kissed Caleb's forehead and asked, "Can I see you in the den for a minute, Derek?"
Derek gave her a curious look. He moved away from Caleb and said, "Be right back, Buddy," and followed Emily.
Emily put her purse down on the table next to her chair and took a seat. She patted the ottoman in front of her.
"What's up, Em?" he asked as he sat.
Emily spoke quickly so he wouldn't interrupt. "My mother died. I'm okay, mostly just relieved. She left me a note saying she was sorry for everything. I'm not quite sure how to feel about that, but I'm not going to spend much time dwelling on it. She left me everything, and this afternoon I went and picked up a cashier's check from her attorney. What would you say if I told you that you could do any or all of the ideas you had surrounding making construction work fulfilling, and it wouldn't matter if you only broke even on your projects, as long as you were happy?"
Derek just stared at her while she reached in her purse and removed the cashier's check, handing it to Derek. It was for just over three million dollars.
"I figure you can take a whatever you need of that and use it for your work, and we'll take the rest and invest it for our family. I can keep consulting as long as things are working out. I make enough for our basic bills and we can use this money to pay for our own health insurance, anything else we need and the school tuition. When Caleb starts there next year, I may decide to do something else, but for now, I'd like to keep doing what I've been doing. There's one small bit of that money that I want to do something else with, if she'll let me." She told Derek her idea.
Derek nodded his head and stared at the check. Finally he laughed and leaned his body against hers. "This isn't a joke, right?"
She smiled and kissed his cheek. "Nope. Time to get out there and do what you want, Derek."
When JJ came that evening to pick up Henry, Emily sat her down. JJ had longed for a school experience for Henry like Serena's. Though she and Will were comfortable enough, that comfort didn't extend to three thousand dollars a month in school tuition.
Emily patted JJ's hand. "My mom died, Jayje. She left everything to me and it's an unbelievably crazy amount of money. I called Kathryn, the director at Walden Country School, and she said she had a space for Henry in one of the fourth grade classes. I'll take care of the tuition. I really, really want to do this for him and you and Will, so please let me."
Tears welled in JJ's eyes and she didn't say anything.
"Consider it doing me a favor. I won't have to drive two places to pick up kids after school," Emily said with a smile.
JJ laughed through her tears and hugged Emily. "It would be super weird and I'd say no if it was just your money. But if you want to use some of that crazy ass woman's money to foot the bill for Henry to go there, I'm in. I'm sure Will will agree."
The week before Thanksgiving, Derek paid cash for a house that gave "fixer-upper" an entirely new meaning. He got a steal on it at a foreclosure auction. The house sat in a lower-middle class neighborhood that was on the rise. His goal was not to fix it up and make a profit. He was hoping to break even, giving a family an opportunity to own a nice home before they were priced out of the neighborhood, and he was planning to have some help working on it.
Derek asked Emily to go with him at the beginning of December to meet with Julia Spencer, the director of several group homes in the DC area who housed teens recently released from juvenile hall, teens who really didn't have anyone supportive in their lives. Julia was kind, but formidable. Emily could see why she was a good fit for this line of work; Emily wouldn't want to cross her, but she couldn't help but like her right away. Derek pitched Julia his idea, and her eyes got wider as he spoke. When he finished talking, she laughed quietly in disbelief.
"Let me see if I understand you correctly. You, an ex-cop and ex-FBI agent, want to take four or five of our kids who could most benefit from a positive influence like yourself, and have them help you work on a house in order to sell a family a nice home they may not otherwise be able to afford. And you want to pay them a reasonable hourly wage for their work while you teach them construction skills. And you want to do this at absolutely no cost to us?"
Derek smiled, "Yep. I'll buy them all bus passes. They'd be responsible for getting there on time and getting back here on time, just like your other teens who are cleared for work. I know from your website that most of them attend an alternative school that ends at noon so that they have afternoons for work skills. So I'm thinking 1:00-4:30, Monday through Friday. Maybe a half day on Saturdays. I just need help with the paperwork I'd need to fill out in order to make this happen on your end, and some advice on what I need to do on my end. I'd trust you to find me a good fit for the first four or five teens, girls and boys. When this project is finished, if it all goes well, I'll get another house and come back to you for another group of kids to work on that one."
Julia laughed again. "Every time I start to think I might just give up on people, the world surprises me with something that makes me change my mind, though this is the biggest surprise ever. Let me tell you how to get started."
Emily reached over and squeezed Derek's hand and they shared a smile. Emily couldn't wait to see how this turned out.