Hey guys! I meant to get this up so much earlier, but I don't have a really good excuse for not doing so. I'm sorry! This is kind of a filler chapter, because there's some stuff that needs to be addressed before I can really progress any farther, but I hope you're not too disappointed with it! Hopefully I'll have the next part up soon!

As always thank you so so so much for your reviews! They always make my day!

XxxxX

A week later, Emily found herself back in Elizabeth's room, as she did every morning. She arrived as soon as visiting hours began, and she stayed until Elizabeth practically forced her out of the building. Since moving into the nursing home, Elizabeth had only had two more minor episodes. Emily hadn't been there for one of them and felt terrible about it. But since then, Emily's mother had been doing well, her doctor came to the nursing home and adjusted her medication, and Emily could tell it was really helping. She just hoped it would last.

The mother-daughter duo busied themselves by playing cards. For some reason that Emily couldn't quite determine, Elizabeth had been much more quiet and reserved today than she had been being. She wanted to know what was wrong with her mother, but she didn't want to press the issue and possibly make it worse.

Since she saw Hotch at the flower shop, she hadn't seen or spoken to him again. She kept finding herself thinking about him. She wondered what he'd told the team, if he'd told them anything. She wondered if he'd thought about her at all in the last week, and she felt a little ridiculous for it. She kept telling herself to stop thinking about him, to stop wondering about a relationship right now. Her promise to her mother still lingered in the back of her mind, and she knew she would act on it eventually. But she had just assumed it would be later on.

Emily's phone started ringing, breaking the silence in the room. Emily pulled the phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen, Clyde's name flashing across it. She'd ignored his last three calls.

"I have to take this, I'll be right back." Emily said quickly as she left the room and headed for the hallway.

"Prentiss." She answered softly, wondering what the man wanted.

"Emily, why aren't you answering your calls? You didn't tell me you would be unreachable." Clyde said firmly, though he didn't seem angry, not really.

"I'm sorry, I've just been...I've been busy. Is everything okay?" Emily asked.

"It's alright here, it's just that I've got to get back to my job. When should I expect you back?" Clyde asked her. Emily could tell he felt bad for asking, but she had kind of left him hanging.

"Um, well...I- do you think you could...replace me?" Emily asked him, her voice soft, barely above a whisper.

"Replace you?" Clyde repeated. "Emily, you're the best leader Interpol has had. Are you sure you're alright? What do you need?"

Emily sighed. She knew she had to explain to Clyde. It wasn't fair to him.

"My mother's sick. I don't- I can't handle that job right now, Clyde. I love it, but I just- I need to stay here. If I have to, I'll probably go back to the FBI. But for now, I just need to focus on my mom." Emily explained.

"Oh, Em. I'm so sorry. You could have told me." Clyde said gently.

Emily nodded before remembering he couldn't see her. She blinked back tears before answering.

"I know. I'm sorry. She doesn't want anyone knowing, that's all. Just...say I've been called away. Find somebody to replace me. Can you-can you do that?" Emily asked. She always hated admitting she count handle something, but she knew there was no way she could handle finding her replacement now. She couldn't even think beyond the next day, much less running an entire office like that.

"I will. If you need anything, anything at all, please let me know." Clyde said sincerely.

"Okay. Thank you," Emily replied. "For everything." She added.

"Just take care of your mother, Emily." Clyde said as the call ended. Emily put her phone back in her pocket and leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed that way, but before long, her mother' voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Emily? Are you alright?" Elizabeth asked softly.

Emily opened her eyes and stood up straighter. "I'm fine." Emily told her.

"No you're not." Elizabeth replied simply.

Emily sighed. She led her mother back into her room, sitting next to her on the bed.

"That was Clyde." Emily said. Elizabeth was familiar enough with him to know who he was, but she'd never personally met him.

"Oh. Is everything okay in London?" Elizabeth asked.

Emily nodded. "He was just…wondering when I was coming back, that's all."

"When are you going back? You've already been here more than a week." Elizabeth said simply, as if she'd expected Emily to have gone back to work already.

"What do you mean? It's only been a little more than a week. Did you really think I was only going to be here for a few days?" Emily asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. "I just don't want you to put your whole life on hold for me, honey."

"I'm not. Everything at Interpol is being taken care of." Emily assured her mother.

"Do you want to go back?" Elizabeth asked.

"No." Emily answered quickly. "I don't want to go back. I- Clyde's replacing me." Emily blurted. It wasn't that she wanted to keep it a secret from Elizabeth, but she knew Elizabeth would feel like it was her fault. And it wasn't.

"Emily," Elizabeth started, but Emily held up a hand, signaling she was going to explain farther.

"The job was great. London was great. I had a nice flat, nice neighbors, and a few friends, even," Emily started. "But…it wasn't home. I missed it here. I missed my friends…family." Emily explained.

"I'm sure if you wanted to, you could get a place back on your old team." Elizabeth said, prepared to do whatever she could to help if she needed to.

"No, Mom. I don't- right now, I don't want to work. I just want to be here." Emily explained. "I have more than enough money saved up to not work for a little while."

"I could be like this for years, Em. You can't just come here and hang out with me all day, every day, for that long. You'll get bored. I'll probably get sick of you." She joked with a wink.

Emily had to laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure I'd get sick of you too."

The two of them decided to leave the conversation alone for now, and picked back up on their card came.

After a few minutes of silence, Elizabeth spoke again.

"Do you remember when we did this together? When you were younger?" She asked quietly, as if she was afraid that maybe Emily had forgotten; but that couldn't have been farther from the truth.

Emily nodded, remembering one time in particular.

November 1981

Emily was eleven years old and had already been to more schools than most people see in their lifetime. Her family had just moved to Italy, and Emily had been going to her new school for three days. She hated every second of it. It was a huge, expensive, fancy private school. Most of the schools she had attended were private schools, so that's not what bothered her about this school. Usually, Emily just tried to blend in and hope that eventually she would make a friend or two. This normally worked for her, but Emily couldn't really see herself making friends with any of the people at this school.

She knew it had only been three weeks, and that wasn't really enough time to know everyone; but everyone seemed to be mean. On her first day, Emily had gotten made fun of for her American accent. She tried speaking Italian, which she was fluent in already, but she got made fun of for that, too. She couldn't really understand why her classmates made fun of her, everyone had an accent, she thought. She tried to ignore it, hoping that eventually it would all blow over and they wouldn't pick on her any more.

One of her classmates had been asked to show Emily around, but had ditched her and left Emily to fend for herself for the whole day. Luckily, she had a pretty good sense of direction and found her classes eventually, even though she had been late to a couple of them.

Just when Emily thought that people would start to accept her, something else happened. Two weeks ago, some girl in Emily's class had switched Emily's lock for her locker with hers, and Emily couldn't get into her locker for the rest of the day. Most of her textbooks were in there, so she went to every class unprepared. It didn't really matter; she knew a lot of the stuff she was learning anyway, so she tried not to let it bother her that much.

Today, she'd eaten lunch in the hallway outside the cafeteria. She thought that seemed better than trying to find an empty table and watch the older, more popular girls laugh at her for being alone. It happened nearly every day, and Emily was tired of it. She'd known for a while now that she'd never be able to make everyone like her, but she knew that acting the way these kids were acting wasn't the way to get accepted, either.

Emily was kind of used to things like this, she never really associated anything positive with school, but this school just wasn't sitting right with her. She hadn't met a single nice person, not even the teachers. They were extremely strict and seemed to always call Emily out on something, even if she wasn't doing anything wrong. She didn't expect them to be nice to her just because she was new, but she did wish they weren't so quick to single her out, either.

So, here Emily was, lying in her bed at nearly midnight, contemplating on what to do. She thought about just trying to get through the school year and ask if she could change schools over the summer, but that seems so far away. She didn't want to ask her mother now, because she didn't want to make her angry. Who knew sixth grade was so much work?

Emily sighed, knowing that if she didn't at least tell her mother how unhappy she was, she'd just wonder about what would have happened. She rolled out of bed and quietly left her room, and headed down the stairs of their recently renovated Italian home.

The light was still on in Elizabeth's office, which wasn't uncommon. Emily often wondered if her mother ever slept.

Emily took a breath before knocking on the door. Hearing her mother's approval, Emily stepped in.

"Emily? What are you doing? You should be asleep." Elizabeth said as she looked up from her desk to see her daughter standing there, staring at the floor and picking at her nails.

"Can I ask you something?" Emily asked, not looking up to meet her mother's eyes; even though she knew her mother had taught her to look at people when she spoke to them.

"Come here," Elizabeth instructed, sensing something was really bothering her daughter.

Emily slowly walked over to her mother, worried that she might be in trouble for being awake so late. She was surprised when Elizabeth pulled her close to her and put her hands on Emily's shoulders.

"What's wrong?" Elizabeth asked.

"Do you think I could maybe switch schools?" Emily asked quickly, wondering if Elizabeth could eve understand her.

"Switch schools? Why do you want to do that?" Elizabeth asked. Emily hoped she wouldn't ask that.

"I just- I don't like it." Emily settled on saying, looking down at the carpet again.

"Is that the only reason? You didn't like your last school very much either, but then you made some friends." Elizabeth reminded her.

Emily bit her lip. "I know…but, everyone's just so mean." Emily explained the whole situation when Elizabeth asked her to, even telling her mother about eating lunch in the hallway to avoid the laughter and stares.

By the time Emily was done explaining, she was crying. She tried really hard not to, because she didn't want to be annoying, or cause her mother any stress.

Rather than tell Emily to stop crying, or that she was being ridiculous and should just learn to deal with it, Elizabeth pulled Emily into her lap and Emily just leaned into her. Elizabeth held her daughter close and gently stroked her hair. Elizabeth wasn't the most nurturing person. Not because she didn't want to be; but because she just wasn't sure how to be. Emily had never really been a crier, not even when she was a baby, so the ambassador wasn't quite sure what to do, but this seemed to be helping. Elizabeth knew her daughter liked to keep things to herself and handle things on her own, so for Emily to be asking her about this so late into the night told Elizabeth that Emily was truly upset about this. She didn't say anything just yet, knowing Emily just needed her right now.

"It's okay, Emily. You don't have to go back." Elizabeth said finally, a few minutes later after Emily had calmed down a little.

"Really?" Emily asked softly, looking up to face her mother, as if she didn't believe her.

"Really. Why don't you stay here tomorrow and I'll figure out what school to send you to?" Elizabeth offered, glancing at the clock. She knew Emily would be impossible to wake up in the morning at this rate, so she might as well just let her stay home.

"Okay," Emily agreed. "Thank you." She added softly, getting down from Elizabeth's lap.

"Do you want to play cards before you go to sleep?" Elizabeth asked. She had taught Emily to play a few games when they'd been travelling on long flights, but they hadn't played together in quite some time. Elizabeth didn't want to send Emily to bed after being so upset, anyway.

"Sure," Emily agreed with a smile, grabbing Elizabeth's hand and leading her back to her bedroom.

The two of them played cards for nearly an hour before Emily grew too tired to even sit up properly. Elizabeth tucked her daughter in and promised her once more that she would take care of everything, and doing just that.

Present day

"You still remember that?" Elizabeth asked once Emily reminded her of that day.

"Of course I do." Emily said. "I know you feel like you haven't been a good mother, but you have been. Any time I've ever needed you, you were there."

Elizabeth sent Emily a small smile. "Except for your funeral." She joked. Emily snorted, she knew her mother had been told not to go, so that if Doyle was actually watching them, he would assume that since Elizabeth didn't attend, that she and Emily weren't close. That way, he wouldn't go after her.

"Yeah, except for that. That's okay, you're just lucky I couldn't haunt you." She quipped.

Also i just wanted to add that in the flashback scene it said 1984, but that's just because i hit the wrong number, it should be 1981, and i fixed it so it's right!