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Chapter 3: Wow, I Only Gave Birth to You

Derek's smug look irritated Ashley and she narrowed her eyes slightly at him. However, she managed to have an impeccable smile when Sophia turned to look at her.

"Mommy, this is the best surprise ever." Her emphasis on ever reminded her mother of a Valley girl. Sophia squeezed Derek's neck and squealed, "Derek's the awesome-est."

"Wow, I only gave birth to you." Her mother said with a huge grin across her face.

"I love you, Mommy, but you're not in the FBI," she said her voice stressing the obvious logic in her categorizations. Sophia turned to question Derek, "Are you staying for dinner?"

Derek raised his eyebrows and Ashley nodded slightly with a small smile on her lips. Derek assented to Sophia's invitation and she immediately made plans for them to play Barbies, dress-up, Pretty-Pretty Princess, and watch her favorite movies. When Derek looked at Ashley in horror, she merely patted his arm and told him that he was an FBI agent who could tough it out. Then she headed into the kitchen to make dinner. Derek's visits had previously consisted of cheering up his two female companions which had usually entailed watching movies, going for walks, reading books, or just talking. Sophia had not been in a particularly playing mood during his last visits. Even though Derek wasn't keen to play Pretty-Pretty Princess, he knew this was a good sign that Sophia was moving on; she might actually be okay after the horrors she had seen.

After a while, Ashley went to check on the two. Derek Morgan was sitting on her living room floor, a crown precariously placed on his head, a blue ring glinting on the tip of his pinkie finger, a clip-on earring dangling from his left ear, a necklace around his neck, a bracelet draped on his fingers, and a determined look on his face as he spun the little mirror spinner. Sophia and Derek watched intently as the spinner slowed, Derek counted out his number of moves on the board. When his pawn came to land on a square, he sighed as Sophia cackled. Sophia tossed Derek the dreaded black ring and merrily spun the tiny arrow. Ashley snuck to her bedroom, found her camera, and snuck back down the stairs trying to be as stealthy as possible.

"If you dare take a picture, I will not be responsible for what will unfortunately happen to your camera, Baby Doll." Derek said without lifting his eyes from the game board.

Ashley sighed resignedly and set the camera on a nearby table, "I thought Penelope would love to see Big Bad Derek Morgan playing Pretty-Pretty Princess. It is a sight to behold."

Sophia interrupted their dispute when she screeched happily and ripped the crown off of Derek's head, "I win," she shouted loudly. "Wanna play again?"

Ashley saved Derek from more humiliation by announcing that she had come to tell them that dinner was ready. The two adults ate rather silently as Sophia told them stories about her day. When dinner was over, Ashley helped Sophia get into her pajamas and they planned to watch a movie with Derek.

Ashley paced the police station. Her mind was whirling at a million miles an hour. The police had asked her if she had any enemies. Enemies? She was a high school English teacher. There was no doubt students were upset about their grades sometimes, but she didn't know if any of them were capable of knocking out a full grown man and taking two children. She didn't realize that an officer had walked up next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She felt like she was having a heart attack; her heart beat out of control.

"Sorry, ma'am, I just wanted to tell you that we are doing our best to find your children and the FBI will be here soon."

"The FBI?"

"Yes, we called in the BAU. My brother-in-law works for the BAU and he said if we ever had child abductions, especially violent ones, that we should contact them. I think this suffices."

"Ok, thanks, officer."

Ashley felt broken, like a toy with low batteries. She felt slow, dumb, numb, and out of control. She hated being out of control. God, her children were everything to her. She was so happy that she had told her kids how much she loved them when they had called her last night. She'd been so extremely lonely without them and she had felt an unexpected but very strong need to remind them of how much she loved them last night. She was always confused when her mind knew something she didn't. She didn't believe in clairvoyants, but after hanging up with her children after dinner yesterday she had felt a push to call them again and remind them of how very much their mother loved them before they went to bed. They had giggled at her, appeased her need to hear them tell her how much they loved her, and then they had listened patiently as she told them everything she loved about them. Jerry had been livid that she had spent so much of his time on the phone with their children, but she had felt an instinctual need to tell them. She wished her clairvoyance worked better than it did; she wished she could've been able to stop it. She wished she would've driven over to Jerry's and taken them home forgoing the consequences. Mother's intuition should've overridden her need to follow the court's ruling.

Ashley knew when the FBI entered the building; the papers shuffled faster, the conversations whirred faster, and the employees moved faster. The FBI had set a taxing pace for the office and Ashley was glad of it. She needed her children and if that meant involving the Feds then so be it. They walked in like the Justice League and if Ashley hadn't been so worried she probably would've giggled. This was absurd; she never imagined that she would need help like this.

I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason. ~Stanley Baldwin