"How do you think she's doing?"
Hotch looked up fro his lunch to see his friend and colleague on the other side of his desk. "I sent her a few texts," he shrugged, taking a large bite of his sandwich. "I'm sure she's doing great." The Unit Chief had given Emily two weeks off to be able to spend time with and figure out little Grace. She had sent him a picture of the baby asleep in her crib two nights before and Hotch had immediately gotten his friend on the phone. Emily had Grace laying on her stomach.
He quickly told her to flip the baby over onto her back so she wouldn't suffocate, being so young she couldn't roll herself over. Immediately, Emily was in tears. She hadn't know about the way a baby was supposed to sleep, and she dibbed herself right then and there the worst mother.
It had taken over an hour to calm the brunette woman down, the sobs heard over the phone having him wanting to run out the door and take Emily in his arms. After finallyletting her calm herself down, the Unit Chief listened to her description of every inch of the baby she was staring at. He listened to her at two in the morning tell him how beautiful the baby was and how scared was to mess up her life. It didn't matter what Hotch said, though. Emily was just thinking like a mother.
"Maybe give her a call."
Taking up the author's suggestion, Hotch picked up his phone and dialed the new mother's number.
"Hello?"
His face quickly fell at the sound of his friend's voice, and he watched Dave leave his office. "Emily? Is everything ok?"
Emily's eyes widened. "Hotch!" she cried, eyeing the sobbing child lying in the playpen JJ had gotten her. "Thank God."
"What's going on?"
The agent's eyes watered. "She won't stop crying," the ambassador's daughter complained, her voice straining. "I've tried to feed her the formula you guys bought, I changed her, I even just held her and tried to rock her because that worked last night when she got fussy. But Hotch, she just won't stop." She made her way back to the living room and peeked into the playpen, taking on look at Grace's red face. "Come on, Gracie. What's the matter?"
"Is she sick?"
Emily frowned, wiping her tears before putting her phone down and on speaker. "Hey," she cooed, leaning down to pick up the squirming baby girl. "It's ok, just let me feel your forehead."
Hotch heard a hiss at the other end. "Does she have a fever?"
"I don't have a thermometer but she feels warm." Trying to cuddle the screaming girl against her, Emily cried. "Why don't I have a thermometer?"
He could feel the younger woman's sadness bleed through the phone and hit him in his heart. "Take her to Jack's pediatrician," he said calmly, standing and taking his briefcase from the side of his desk. "I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes, ok? Tell the doctor that I recommended you go there and they'll see you right away." Rushing out of his office, he waved to Dave walked back from the kitchen. "I have to go. Tell Strauss to reschedule the meeting for tomorrow at noon."
Watching his friend run out the glass doors, Rossi smiled behind his coffee cup.
Emily's tears rolled down her cheeks as she tried to quiet the child she held, doing her best to ignore the stares of the other adults in the waiting room. "Gracie please," she whispered, patting the four month old on the back. "Sweetie please just quiet down for me."
The four month old wailed louder and waved her fists in the air.
"Can you quiet her down?"
The FBI agent glared at the other mother two seats down from her as her hand rubbed up and down her daughter's back. "If I were you I'd quiet myself down before speaking like that to me," she growled.
Hearing the entrance door open, Emily pulled Grace to her chest to shield her from the cold, having had to take off her small jacket because she had started burning up.
"Emily?"
The new mother immediately stood and let her friend hug her tight to his chest. "The doctor said he'd be right out but that was twenty minutes ago," she said sadly.
Hotch left the younger woman's side and rushed to the front desk. "Emily and Grace Prentiss have been here waiting to be seen by Dr. Klein. Where is he?"
"He's helping with the new assistant," the twenty year old replied.
"Tell him Aaron Hotchner is here. Now."
Emily held her arm out as her friend came back over and she wrapped it around his waist. "Thank you." She pressed a desperate kiss to his chin before turning her attention back to the baby. "Why won't she stop crying?"
The Unit Chief coaxed the four month old out of his friend's arms. "Hey Gracie girl," he whispered in her ear. "What's the matter with you today? Why are you giving your mommy a hard time?"
The agent felt herself gulp at the title.
"Grace Prentiss?"
Emily and her friend rushed into the exam room, the brunette agent taking her child from her friend's arms. "I don't know what's wrong."
Noticing the tears in the brunette woman's eyes and the young age of the baby in her arms, the doctor couldn't have made a quicker assumption. "First time mother?"
Emily shakily nodded her head.
"Take off her onesie, will you? So I can check her heart."
Silently thanking her friend for trying to keep the four month old on the table lying still, Emily started to unbutton the purple onesie she wore. "It's ok," she whispered, noticing Grace wincing at the cold once her clothes were off. "It's ok Gracie, we're just going to check to see what's wrong, ok?"
The doctor smiled to the brunette before taking the baby from her arms. "Alright Grace, you want to tell me what has you so cranky?"
Emily let Hotch wrap an arm around her shoulders as she bit hard into her thumbnail, watching the baby wail in the doctor's arms.
"Her heart is just fine," the doctor said distractedly. She laid the baby down on the exam table and went to look in her ears. "It looks like an infection."
Hotch let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in and pressed a kiss to Emily's head. "Ear infections are easy," he whispered to her, nodding against her hair. "She'll be ok."
The blond woman quickly redressed the young girl after taking her temperature, and she handed the baby back off into the agent's arms. "She'll be just fine," she nodded, agreeing with Hotch's earlier assumption. "I'm going to prescribe her some antibiotics."
Emily slowly untangled herself from Hotch's arms. "Is that ok for a baby so young?"
"It's only a few days on the prescription. Other than the infection Grace seems very healthy, so it shouldn't be detrimental to her health." Looking up from the file she was creating, the blond doctor gave the new mother a smile. "If it was you who had the infection, we'd want you to wait at least a week to see if it cleared up on its own. Sadly, babies can't tell you how much pain they're in or how bad the infection is. To be safe, we'll put her on a week of the antibiotic."
Emily pressed a kiss to the child's head and gently bounced her to try and quiet her down, waiting for the doctor to leave the room before she let her face show the pain she was feeling.
"What are you thinking?"
Her watering brown eyes flickered up to her friend's and she shook her head. "I'm the worst mother already," she breathed. "I didn't have a thermometer, I didn't know the signs of an ear infection, I didn't know how to get her to calm down. I've had her for a weekend, Hotch! How am I supposed to do this for eighteen years?"
Hotch quickly sat the younger woman down in the vacant chair beside them. "Emily," the Unit Chief chided softly. "That's exactly it. You've been a mother for just one weekend." He watched her flinch at the name. "What?"
"I want people to stop calling me that," she whispered, smoothing down Grace's dark hair. "I'm not her mother."
"But you jus-"
"I know I said it," Emily nodded, looking down to the crying baby who was pulling at her hair. "I just don't know how I feel about it yet."
Hotch gave a slow nod of the head as he knelt before his friend. "Ok," he smiled. "Guardian."
Emily's eyes stung at the smile on the older man's face. "Will you help me?" Her voice was so small and desperate, she barely identified it as hers. "With Grace? When I can't seem to do the right thing or maybe when she's a little order and doesn't want anything to do with me, or just when I'm too stupid to t-"
"Hey!" the Unit Chief's stern voice cut in. "You are not stupid."
"Hotch, I don't even have a thermometer!"
"So get one. This is new to you, you have to understand that. You're not going to get everything right." Hotch laughed, shaking his head. "If I were to have another, I'm sure I'd still mess up here and there. Everybody does, Emily," he said softly, cupping her damp cheek. "We're parents, that's what we do. We fuck up and we learn from it."
Emily pursed her lips to try and stop her tears. "So you're agreeing I fucked up?"
Hotch rolled his eyes, helping his friend stand and leading her out of the examination room. "Come on. How about we go back home and you give Gracie her medicine, and I'll go on a much needed ice cream run?"
"That sounds perfect," the younger woman sighed happily, letting Hotch take the baby so she could wipe her eyes. "I could almost love you, Aaron Hotchner."
The doctor watched the pair walk to the front desk to receive their prescription, the older man's arms around the baby and the woman by his side, and she hid her smile behind her clipboard.