So sorry this took me so long to get up! I had such a crazy week at school, I had to get two research papers done (and maybe, just maybe, that was due to my awesome procrastination skills…)! But I hope I can update more regularly now, but just know that I really, really love reading all your reviews, and I do plan to see this through to the end! I've got it mostly all planned. Thank you for all your favorites, follows, and reviews!

XxxxX

Sunday started out relatively slow, Emily didn't even wake up until 11am. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept so late. She decided to shower, since she hadn't had time or energy since she had arrived in DC.

When she finally headed down the stairs, she found her mother in her office; stacks of papers all around her. She looked deep in thought, her brow furrowed as she read the paper in front of her, twirling her pen in her hand. Her glasses she only wore when she was reading for extended periods of time were low on her nose.

Emily gently knocked on the opened door, alerting Elizabeth to her presence.

"Good morning, Emily." Elizabeth greeted her daughter as she looked up from her desk, sending Emily a warm smile.

"Barely," Emily smiled back, leaning against the door frame. "I haven't slept this late since...well, probably high school." She laughed softly.

"I figured you needed it, yesterday was pretty stressful for you, I'm sure." Elizabeth replied.

"No, it wasn't." Emily assured her mother, not wanting her to think that her flying out was an inconvenience.

"Honey, you were woken up in the middle of the night, and then you were told your mother had Alzheimer's, and you immediately flew out here. It's okay; I would be stressed out too." Elizabeth said softly. "Besides, you run Interpol, so I'm sure finding someone to handle things wasn't easy." She added.

"Actually, that's been taken care of; the guy who gave me that job is taking care of it for me. I'm not entirely sure who's doing his job, though. But everything will get done." Emily said truthfully, sincerely. She could tell her mother was feeling guilty about her coming all the way out here, but she wouldn't let Elizabeth think she wanted to be anywhere else, because she didn't.

Emily crossed the room and sat down in a chair by Elizabeth's desk. She put her elbows on the handcrafted, wooden desk, and rested her head in her hands.

"What are you working on?" Emily asked curiously.

Elizabeth sighed before looking up and meeting Emily's eyes.

"It's my will." Elizabeth replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

Emily felt her breath catch in her throat. She had to clear her throat before she could respond.

"Oh," was all she could say. Emily knew her mother had created a will quite some time ago, should something have happened when Emily was young; but to see her updating it now made everything seem just a bit more real.

"Mostly everything will go to you," Elizabeth said. "We only owned one other property, in Italy. But I've put it up for sale, so hopefully you won't have to do anything with it." That was good, Emily guessed. When they'd lived elsewhere, they were usually given some kind of governmental housing; but in DC and Italy they had their own houses.

"I don't- what am I supposed to do with it?" Emily asked. She wasn't even sure what 'it' entailed.

"Whatever you want, Emily. It'll be yours." Elizabeth said.

Emily took a breath and let it out slowly, as if that would give her time to come up with an answer.

"Okay..." She settled on saying. "Well, that won't be for a few years at least." Emily said.

"We can hope." Elizabeth said softly.

"Mom," Emily said as she reached across the desk and put a hand on her mother's hand. "You're okay." She said softly.

Elizabeth didn't say anything, just looked up at her daughter with a tearful smile. Wordlessly, she simply put down her pen and placed her hand on top of Emily's.

They remained that way for a while, neither one of them needing anything to say anything, just the presence of each other being enough.

"Well," Elizabeth said finally, "I'll finish this up later."

"Are you sure? I can-um, I can leave you alone for a bit." Emily offered.

"It's alright, Em. It's pretty much all settled anyway, you'll have to take it to my lawyer sometime this week to make it official, or have him come to...to the place." Elizabeth faltered slightly.

Emily just nodded.

"How about we get some lunch?" Elizabeth suggested. Emily agreed, and the two rose from their seats. They decided to head out to one of their favorite DC cafés, just the two of them. Neither one of them said it, but they knew opportunities like that would become fewer and farther in between in the coming years.

XxxxxX

The rest of the day went by rather smoothly; Emily helped her mother pack up the few remaining things she would be taking with her the next day to move in. Just before dinner, Elizabeth went up to her room to take a nap. Emily promised to take care of the meal that night since Elizabeth had done so the night before.

Emily decided to actually cook something, rather than call for something. George insisted on helping, so together, they rummaged through the kitchen for something to have for dinner. They found enough ingredients to make chicken parmesan and set to work, making effortless conversation.

When everything was just about ready, Emily and George heard Elizabeth coming down the stairs.

"Hey," Emily greeted warmly as her mother stood in the doorway. Emily stopped what she was doing; nearly dropping the stack of plates she had taken out to set the table when she noticed how confused her mother looked.

"Emily? What are you doing here?" Elizabeth asked. Emily closed her eyes, slowly setting the plates down on the counter in front of her in an effort not to drop them.

"It's okay, Emily. Just stay calm, tell her the truth." She was faintly aware of George coming to stand next to her; he put his arm around her gently. He knew Emily hadn't yet seen her mother like this, and he was trying to comfort her. Emily appreciated the effort and understood, but she wished he would let her go so she could run upstairs. No, she told herself. She couldn't freak out now, now was when her mother would need her to be the strongest.

Emily took a breath and let it out slowly before she continued. "You asked me to come here." Emily said simply, she didn't know exactly how much truth to disclose.

"I- I didn't…don't you have school?" Elizabeth asked, brow furrowed as if she was desperately trying to remember why her daughter was in her house, making dinner. She was sure Emily was supposed to be at Yale.

"No, Mom. I don't have school. I'm here for you." Emily said gently, too afraid to move from the spot she was standing in now that she had started talking.

"But- I- Emily, how long have you been here?" Elizabeth settled on asking.

"I got in yesterday. It's okay, Mom. It's just me." Emily said, gathering the strength to walk across the room and hug her mother in an effort to calm her down.

Elizabeth didn't hug her back, she just stood there still as a statue.

"Emily, it's finals week, isn't it? You're not skipping your exams, are you?" Elizabeth questioned. Emily looked at the calendar; it was the right time of year for a college to be having final exams.

Emily glanced at George, silently begging him to take over.

"Elizabeth, why don't you, Emily, and I go sit down? We can all talk together." George offered. Elizabeth nodded slowly, allowing Emily to guide her into the sitting room.

The Prentiss women sat on the couch, while George opted to sit in the chair across from them.

Emily bit back tears. This was so much harder than she'd anticipated.

"Elizabeth, Emily isn't in college any longer. She's graduated." George started out.

"Well, if that's true, why wasn't I at the graduation? I would remember that." Elizabeth said stiffly. Emily cleared her throat, she didn't have the heart to remind her mother that she had missed the graduation because of bad weather in the Ukraine, and her plane wasn't able to takeoff until after it had already happened.

"Mom, I know what I'm going to tell you is going to be hard to hear, but it's the truth. You wanted me here because you've been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. You're moving into a nursing home tomorrow, because you decided it was best. You don't want anyone you know to see you like this…" Emily stopped, noticing her mother begin to twirl her fingers in her lap anxiously. The younger brunette didn't know what to do, what to say.

"I don't- I don't remember." Elizabeth said, her voice cracking.

"That's okay, it's alright." Emily said softly, taking her mother's hands in hers to calm her down.

"I can't be sick. There's so much to do, I have too much to deal with!" Elizabeth said suddenly, quickly rising from the couch and beginning to pace. She was no longer fighting back the tears, but instead letting them fall. Emily had never, not once in her life, seen Elizabeth Prentiss cry. Not out of sadness, anger, or even joy. To see it now was truly one of the scariest, most heart breaking things Emily had ever seen.

"Mom, please, sit back down. Let me- let me read to you." Emily choked out. When she was younger, she would often ask Elizabeth if she could read to her. Sometimes, when Elizabeth was working in her office, Emily would follow her mother there and sit on the floor or in a chair next to Elizabeth's desk and read to her. It was often the only time Emily ever got to spend alone with her mother, and Elizabeth didn't seem to mind it as long as Emily wasn't interrupting an important meeting or phone call, or something of the sort.

Elizabeth stopped pacing, as if she was considering Emily's offer.

"Okay," Elizabeth said finally. "Okay."

Emily led Elizabeth upstairs, back to her bedroom. Elizabeth got back into bed, and Emily went over to Elizabeth's bookcase; the massive mahogany shelves rivaling that of Emily's in terms of how many books fit on the shelves.

Emily picked up To Kill a Mockingbird, remembering that she had read it to Elizabeth before, when she was much younger, probably even before she had reached middle school. Emily had learned to read at an early age, and since then had pretty much always been reading something.

"You'll like this one," Emily said softly, sitting next to her mother on the bed. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.." Emily began to read, trying with great resolution to keep her voice calm and even.

By the beginning of the third chapter, Elizabeth had fallen back to sleep. Emily carefully sat the book on Elizabeth's nightstand, and scrawled a note that dinner was in the fridge, placing it on top of the book.

Emily slowly closed the door behind her as she quickly headed down to the kitchen, wiping at her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay for just a bit longer.

When she got to the kitchen, she noticed George was still there, getting out containers to put the untouched food in.

"Thanks," Emily breathed. "I was…I was just gonna come do that." She managed to get out.

"You did good, Emily. You did really good." George assured her, abandoning his task and moving to hug her tightly, she welcomed the gesture and hugged him back, not caring about being strong any more. She finally let herself cry.

Emily pulled back, forcing herself to stop crying. George led her back into the sitting room, sitting them both on the couch.

"She looked… she was so confused… she was crying." Emily said slowly, as if she was processing what had happened.

"At least she knew who we were…it's been so bad before that she didn't know who I was at all. She threatened to call the police, but I managed to talk her down." George told her gently.

"What- what do I do if she...if she looks at me and doesn't know who I am?" Emily asked, trying not to seem as scared as she was. Her voice sounded foreign even to her.

"Sometimes, you can gently remind her and she'll calm down a little. Pictures help, I've learned. Other times, you might have to go along with it, and leave her be. Sometimes reminding her might just make it worse." George told her.

Emily ran her hands through her hair. "When- when I got here, I thought… I thought maybe she was rushing into this. I thought she was…" She stopped.

"You thought she was okay?" George offered. Emily nodded. Knowing that what she had just seen wasn't the worst it had been made her incredibly nervous, and worried that she was going to mess everything up somehow.

"She only has really bad episodes maybe once or twice a week, smaller ones like tonight are pretty common, though. Yesterday was just a really good day for her. I think you being here helped." George admitted.

"Yeah?" Emily bit her lip.

George nodded. "That night she forgot who I was, I showed her a picture of you and me. It was from several Christmases ago, you might've just graduated from Yale, but somehow, it was enough to convince her that I wasn't going to hurt her. If you trusted me, then she could too." He said with a smile.

Emily smiled, though more tears were threatening to fall.

"If you don't feel like eating, I'll put everything away. It'll be okay to heat up tomorrow." George said finally, after they had sat in a comfortable silence for a while.

"I can help," Emily offered, though she knew it was a futile attempt.

"Why don't you go get some rest?" He suggested. She just nodded, too emotionally exhausted to do any kind of arguing.

She bid the man goodnight and headed up the stairs and to her bedroom. She didn't bother changing into pajamas; she just fell into bed and pulled the covers around her as tightly as she could. She let herself break down once more, before drifting off to sleep. Even as sleep was consuming her, she couldn't help but think about how hard the next day was going to be.