A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. This one is pretty much all Emily and Grace and picks up right where we left off. I wanted to get to the next part that involves another one of our BAU people so it wasn't all Emily and an OC, but it was getting too long.
Chapter 22
"Same time next week?"
"I'll go ahead and put her down as a regular."
It sounded like Emily was wrapping up with Helen. Their voices were getting closer, which made it easier to hear from Grace's position right outside the closed door of the therapist's office, where she had her ear pressed to the door shamelessly.
They were in there talking about her. She thought she had a right to know what they were saying in there. She had only stayed seated for a minute, if that, after the door closed behind them before taking up her current position – a prime spot for eavesdropping. But it was also a position where she would get caught if she didn't move - and quickly, Grace realized, when she heard Emily agree to regular weekly sessions. It sounded like they were already at the door. It would open any second now.
Wide-eyed and slightly panicked, Grace scrambled back over to the chair that she was sitting in before, her butt hitting the seat literally as the door opened and Helen came out, followed closely by Emily.
That was close, Grace thought, surprised to find herself a little out of breath from her mad dash back to the chair. She was athletic enough that the short dash across the waiting room shouldn't have made her winded. Whether she realized it or not, it was the adrenaline of almost getting caught. And even though she thought she was, Grace wasn't completely in the clear yet. Eventually she would learn that Emily noticed everything, but she still thought she could get away with things.
Narrowing her eyes in a calculating manner, Emily studied her thirteen-year-old, noting the pink flush to her cheeks. And why was she out of breath if she'd just been sitting there?
Having her suspicions, Emily thought back to everything she had discussed with Grace's therapist, wincing slightly when she realized that if Grace was listening in on the private conversation, then Grace would have heard her call Doyle a psychopath. It could be worse, Emily knew. Grace had already seen the profile, so it wasn't exactly new information for her - it just wasn't something that she would like or appreciate hearing. Emily didn't think anything else that was discussed was too bad.
Feeling a little unnerved by the intensity of her mother's stare, Grace shifted uncomfortably and did her best to look normal. "Can we go now?" She asked.
Grace sounded bored, but the way she was squirming around under Emily's gaze didn't fit. She wasn't really bored - she was almost…nervous.
Emily, who was still studying her daughter closely, merely nodded, having all but decided that she was right about what Grace had been up to. Of course, she couldn't know that for sure, but she had a very strong suspicion.
Emily waited until they were in the car to say anything. She debated whether she should say anything at all. If she was wrong and she accused Grace, it wouldn't end well. She knew she was right though. She could feel it in her gut.
"How much of that did you hear?" Emily asked, keeping her expression and tone carefully neutral as she stared straight ahead at the road.
Grace looked at Emily with a surprised expression that she quickly tried to school into a look of innocence. "I didn't."
Grace didn't seem to be caught unaware by the accusation like she would have been if it was completely unfounded. No. Instead, she was defensive, denying it immediately.
And then there was the look on Grace's face. It was the same look she had on her face when she was telling Emily and her team that she had no idea where Sky could be – all the while keeping the location of the empty warehouse that they'd been sleeping in to herself. Grace was lying then, and she was lying now. Emily was sure of it now – at least as sure as she could be.
Emily gave her daughter a look of disbelief. "That's a lie."
"No, it's not," Grace protested, not ready to admit to any wrongdoing yet. Emily couldn't know. As long as Grace didn't tell her…
"Hey, I get it," Emily told her. "It's me and your therapist talking. You were worried about what we would say."
Emily didn't seem mad, but Grace had to wonder if that was just a trick to get her to confess.
When she was placed with the Carlsons, Grace got caught eavesdropping on one of their conversations with her caseworker. It was after Grace, who was ten at the time, had requested a new placement – a request which was ignored until her old caseworker retired and Caitlin stepped in. Her caseworker was talking to Mr. and Mrs. Carlson alone in the living room. Grace was listening from the stairwell, but Mrs. Carlson saw her when she was on the way to the kitchen to refill everyone's drinks. After getting caught, Grace was locked in her room until her caseworker left, and then Mr. Carlson had come up to remind her of her place. It was how he did that – beating her ass with a leather belt until she cried like a little girl – that was the whole reason Grace wanted to be moved somewhere else…literally anywhere else. She hated it there.
Grace didn't think Emily would do anything like that, but she could never really be sure. She hadn't really paid much attention to what Emily was wearing before, but now that she was looking for it, Grace noticed the fashionable black leather belt that the older woman had paired with dark wash jeans, the belt buckle strangely off-center. Eyeing the belt warily, Grace crossed her arms in front of her protectively.
The only other time that Grace even thought Emily might punish her had been when she was trying to leave the hotel room in Philadelphia in the middle of the night, and Emily stopped her. Grace remembered how scared she'd been when Emily grabbed her arm and led her over to the bed. It gave her flashbacks to Mr. Carlson - and not in a good way. To this day, that was by far the angriest that Emily had ever been with her, but all Emily had done then was talk to her. Grace thought talking and trying to understand her was more Emily's speed than beating her into submission. And that kind of fit, what with Emily being an FBI profiler and all. Her job was literally to get into people's heads.
When Grace still didn't admit to anything, only huddling in on herself in the passenger seat, Emily kept going. "You wanted some reassurance that we weren't saying anything bad. And that's okay. But don't lie to me about it."
"How do you know I'm lying?" Grace asked, purposefully not actually admitting to anything. Her tone and the way she asked it came across as more of a challenge than any sort of admission of guilt.
"When we came out of Helen's office, your face was flushed and you were out of breath." Emily knew she had the girl there, and judging by her silence, Grace knew it, too. Good. Maybe now Emily could get some answers. "So how much did you hear?"
"It was kind of hard to hear through the door," Grace hedged, thinking it might help her now if Emily believed she hadn't heard anything. "Too bad Extendable Ears aren't real."
"Yeah, that's just what you need," Emily said with a soft chuckle. "You with anything invented by the Weasley twins is a scary thought."
Impressed but not really surprised that Emily recognized the Harry Potter reference and responded in kind, a small smile crept onto Grace's face before she managed to suppress it. She couldn't smile. She didn't even know if Emily was mad at her or what Emily would do if she was. She cast a surreptitious glance at the woman. "Are you mad?"
"I'm not mad," Emily assured her. "Just- stop lying to me."
Emily knew, and nothing Grace could say would convince her otherwise. Realizing that she was just digging herself a deeper hole every time she denied it, Grace let out a resigned sigh. "Okay, I may have heard some of what you said."
"What did you hear?" Emily questioned.
"You think I'm mad at you," Grace stated flatly.
Emily glanced at her. "Aren't you?"
"I don't know," Grace answered honestly. She didn't like the idea of Emily thinking she needed therapy. In fact, it was enough to piss her off. In her mind, Emily would only think that if Emily thought there was something wrong with her. But now…now Grace didn't even know if that was the real reason. The idea that Emily might want the therapist to fix things between them was a new one to Grace, who wasn't quite sure how to feel about the whole thing now. Where she'd gone to therapy for the first time after the Morgans had given up on her completely, deciding that she was too screwed up to be around their real daughter, Grace was beginning to realize that was very different from what Emily was doing now. Emily was not about to give up. Emily was trying to fix things with her. And that made Grace feel good in a way that she didn't understand and wouldn't admit to if she did, this warm, fuzzy feeling that spread within her chest.
"You don't know?" Emily repeated incredulously as she thought about the way Grace had been acting toward her - though, to be fair, Grace had been acting differently since they left the therapist's office.
"I was, but I'm not anymore," Grace told her mother somewhat sheepishly.
Emily didn't understand that logic at all, but at least Grace was talking to her again.
"What else did you hear?" Emily asked, knowing it had to be more than just the beginning of her conversation with the therapist. If Grace heard that, then she probably heard everything.
"The goal of therapy is to help me adjust, whatever that means," Grace repeated what she heard in her own words, scrunching her nose up as if offended by the idea that she wasn't adjusted. "You don't need to talk to me now," she told her mother. "I already know the goal."
"We do still need to talk about it," Emily told her. "But, first, finish telling me what you heard."
"Did you have to tell her everything about my dad?" Grace voiced the only real complaint she had about what she overheard, a slight whine to her voice. She managed to avoid the subject of her dad the whole entire session, and then Emily went in there and told the therapist all about him. Grace knew her dad was a dangerous subject – one Helen would want to spend time on, but one where Grace would have to be very careful with what she said. She didn't know what she was supposed to feel about him. It was normal for kids to love their parents, right? But normal kids probably didn't have a parent who was a psycho killer.
Emily was afraid that what she said to the therapist about Doyle would be the one thing that Grace might have heard that would upset her. The profile had always been a point of contention between them. Grace didn't like how Emily got the information for it or what the profile actually said about the father that she loved. As if bracing for a fight, Emily tensed, her grip on the steering wheel tightening. "I didn't tell her everything."
"No, just that he was a psycho killer," Grace muttered with an angry scoff.
"Do you know what a psychopath is?" Emily asked her. She was thinking about how to make Grace understand that there was a difference between the words crazy and psycho that the thirteen-year-old liked to throw around and what Ian Doyle really was.
"Someone who's crazy," Grace said in a tone that suggested the answer should have been obvious.
"No. Not exactly," Emily told her. "Psychotics are sometimes described as insane. I think that's what you mean when you use the word crazy or psycho. But your father wasn't psychotic. He was a psychopath. There's a difference. He wasn't insane or crazy. He just…wasn't capable of remorse or empathy. He didn't feel things the same way you or I do."
Grace had a sort of contemplative look on her face as she considered what Emily was saying, silently weighing it against what she remembered of her dad. "But he did feel things. I think he really loved Declan."
Immediately noticing that their daughter no longer included herself on the very short list of people that Ian Doyle loved, Emily tried to catch Grace's eyes – something that was easier said than done while also keeping an eye on the road. "He loved you, too. His love was just…so different."
There was something about the way Emily said that, a sort of chilling, shudder-inducing tone to her voice at the end there that made Grace remember her dad had loved Emily once. It was easy to forget that since her parents were basically mortal enemies.
"You would know," Grace said in such a way that Emily couldn't tell if it was intended to be a vote of confidence or a grave insult.
"I do. I know he loved you, but that didn't stop him from doing things that hurt you," Emily said. "You know what he was. You know what he did to your adoptive parents."
Grace swallowed a lump in her throat and looked out the window on the passenger side, just doing anything she could to avoid looking at Emily. She couldn't bring herself to say that her dad was a psychopath. It was like the words stuck in her throat. He was still her dad and she loved him in spite of everything, but she couldn't defend him anymore so she just said nothing.
When it became clear to her that Grace wasn't going to respond, Emily tried a different way of getting Grace to really see what Doyle was. Emily needed her daughter to understand that he was a psychopath. It wasn't just something Emily said - it was what he was. The profile wasn't Emily's opinion – it was the truth, with an abundance of evidence to support everything that Emily put in the profile.
"Do you think he felt bad about what he did to them?" Emily asked, still referring to the adoptive parents.
"No," Grace said in a hollow voice. "You know, I used to have nightmares about the night of the fire. I remember waking up, crying for my parents. He would come in and hold me while I cried, but he was the one who took them from me. How fu- screwed up is that?"
Emily glanced at her daughter in surprise but chose to ignore the fact that her thirteen-year-old almost dropped an F-bomb. She supposed she should be glad that Grace stopped herself from saying it. Regardless, now wasn't the time. And, if there were ever a time where that was the right word to describe the situation, it was now. What Doyle did to their daughter was truly fucked up.
"He didn't feel bad because he couldn't. He wasn't capable of remorse," Emily reiterated what she told her earlier.
"So he didn't care if he hurt me," Grace concluded bitterly. "It didn't matter to him."
"You mattered to him. It was just your feelings that didn't." Emily tried to distinguish between the two with the hopes that her daughter would be able to do the same. "I know it's hard to understand, but he didn't feel things the same way you or I do."
"You told Helen that my dad made me believe you saw me as an extension of him," Grace began somewhat hesitantly. "But he never said that. At least not that I remember." Her tone wasn't accusatory, but she was looking to Emily to explain. She didn't really understand what that meant or why Emily said it.
"Maybe not in so many words," Emily acknowledged. "But when he told you repeatedly that I didn't want you because you were his, that's what he was doing."
"Do you think that's what he really thought? Or did he just want me to hate you?" Grace wondered.
"Both," Emily said with a glance at Grace to gauge her reaction. It didn't look like she was surprised by the answer. It almost looked like it was the answer that she was expecting.
"Probably," Grace muttered her quiet agreement.
"It was really what he thought," Emily added hastily, not sure if that would make Grace feel any better about any of it. "That's how psychopaths see their children - as extensions of themselves."
"Aren't all kids kind of extensions of their parents?" Grace questioned as she thought about it.
It was a good question, and Emily actually had to think about how to answer it. At first, it was hard for Emily to see anything of herself in her angry, spiteful daughter, but as the girl slowly, gradually became less hostile, Emily was starting to notice some similarities…little things that gave her a small thrill. Whenever she saw something of herself in Grace, Emily felt this strange sense of wonder, almost like she still couldn't believe that she really created this person. She marveled at the fact that her baby had grown into this teenager who was almost but not quite as tall as she was. And it was more than just the physical similarities. It was from Emily that Grace got her love of books, her sarcastic sense of humor, and her fearlessness. And it was from Doyle that she got any athletic ability that she possessed, her brazenness, and her temper. And then there were things that Grace didn't get from either of them, things that were just unique to her. That was the crux of it – although Emily could see some of herself in her young daughter, she didn't want or expect the girl to be an exact replica. That, Emily thought, was the difference between a parent and a psychopath.
"Maybe all parents see themselves in their kids to a certain extent…a shared physical characteristic, a hobby that they have in common, similar personalities. But it was different for him. Because you were his, he thought you were cut from the same cloth. Not just similar – the same," Emily stressed that point. "He wanted to raise you and Declan to have his life…to grow up to be just like him. But it's your life, Grace. You get to decide who you want to be."
"Don't you mean what I want to be?" Grace asked with a confused look on her face.
"What I mean is that you get to decide what kind of a person you want to be," Emily told her thirteen-year-old. "You're not the same person as your father. You're two entirely different people. You have your own distinct personality, your own likes and dislikes. The only reason I brought any of this up with your therapist is because I think sometimes you still have a hard time believing that I can separate whatever my feelings for your father were from my feelings for you."
"Sheer hatred?" Grace was quick to supply the whatever that she was sure Emily felt for her dad in a rueful tone. "But I already know you don't hate me."
Emily knew her daughter's 'I know you don't hate me' was still a long way from Grace knowing that Emily loved her, but it was progress. Baby steps, Emily reminded herself. This was a marathon, not a sprint.
"You do?" Emily questioned, wanting to see if Grace would elaborate on that.
"Yeah. You really hated my dad. But I don't think you hate Declan. I think you actually like him even though you hated our dad. And that means maybe you would like me, too, if I stopped being an asshole to you," Grace reasoned in a way that only a kid could.
When she went with Emily to meet her brother, Grace had watched Emily and Declan's every interaction carefully, analyzing every word and gesture for days after as she tried to make it fit with what her dad had told her. It didn't really fit and made her start to re-evaluate everything, trying to make sense of the complete puzzle that was her mother. If it was all a charade, why would Emily have carried on with it for so long? Her job was done. She didn't have to pretend anymore. Emily had no reason to stay in touch with Declan, not after their dad was in prison and definitely not after he died. Grace had decided that Emily must really like Declan. Maybe she even cared about him. And if Emily was capable of liking one of their dad's kids, then it was possible for Emily to like Grace, too. It had taken seeing Emily with Declan for Grace to get to that point. Before that, Grace thought all Emily would ever feel for her was hatred and disgust.
"There is no if, Grace," Emily told her child very definitively. "And what I feel for you goes way beyond liking you. You're my daughter. I love you."
It was the first time she'd said those words to Grace. Emily wasn't entirely comfortable telling a child who had spent most of her life hating her that that she loved her. If she were being honest, it wasn't even just Grace - Emily wasn't very comfortable saying those three little words to anyone. She hadn't heard them enough from her own parents growing up, and saying them now wasn't easy for her. With Grace, it was specially daunting. Emily knew that there was a time when Grace would have thrown her words back in her face in as cold and cruel a manner as possible. Right now, though, Emily knew it was what Grace needed to hear – even if Emily was a little afraid Grace's response would shoot right through the center of her heart.
The truth was that hearing that gave Grace anxiety. Her face suddenly felt hot and her skin felt itchy, like she was having some sort of an allergic reaction. It had been years since anyone told Grace that they loved her, and she had no idea how to respond. It probably didn't help that she'd gone seven years believing her mother hated her. She couldn't just accept that the complete opposite was true now without really overthinking it.
"You don't really know me that well," Grace pointed out a little skeptically.
"You said that your father loved Declan," Emily reminded her. "How well do you think he really knew Declan? It had been over seven years since he last saw him."
"That was different," Grace said.
"How?" Emily asked her.
"He was-" Grace was going to say that he was Declan's dad, but she cut herself off when she realized belatedly that wasn't all that different. Emily was her mother.
"He was what?" Emily prompted, unwilling to let this go if there was a chance it would help Grace understand how flawed her logic was.
"Declan's dad," Grace answered somewhat embarrassedly. Before Emily could point out that she was Grace's mother, Grace hastily added, "Which, okay, might not be that different, but he always wanted Declan. It wasn't his fault that he didn't really know Declan anymore."
Just when Emily thought she was making some good progress, they were back to Grace blaming her for being the one to put Doyle in prison. "He went to prison because of the things he did, Grace," Emily said tiredly, sick of her daughter blaming her for everything that happened back then. "And it may interest you to know that he had another choice besides prison. He just didn't take it. When I was undercover, I offered to help get him out…away from his life. Declan would have been safer."
"You did?" Grace asked with a truly shocked expression. That was brand-new information for her. If she didn't really care about her dad, if it was all just for show, then why would Emily have tried to help him? Grace thought idly of The Fast and the Furious movies, where the undercover cop fell in love with Dom's sister and helped Dom get away. Did stuff like that really happen in real life?
"Yes, but he didn't even consider leaving that life for his son," Emily told Grace honestly. "Declan's safety was important to him, just…not important enough. Your safety was the most important thing to me. I had hoped that knowing what happened to Declan when your father's enemies caught up to him would help you understand why I did what I did. It wasn't because I didn't care about you. It was because I did - I do."
Grace merely nodded in response, her flushed face, averted eyes, and the way she was sort of shrinking down in the passenger seat all giving away her embarrassment and discomfort.
Emily knew that any talk of feelings – especially Emily's - made Grace uncomfortable. She had to remember that although her own parents hadn't said it very often, Emily had always known that they loved her in their own way. But Grace…Grace had grown up believing that Emily wanted nothing to do with her, that Emily didn't care about her at all. Ian Doyle loved her, but he had done it in such a warped, twisted way that the thirteen-year-old didn't really know what a parent's love should be. The last time she was really part of a happy, loving family was when she was six years old. At this point, after being alone for as long as she had, Emily wondered if the young teenager even knew how to let Emily love her.
"I know you're starting to question everything, especially where your father and I are concerned. Your life is unraveling. You're living with me now in a new home and going to a new school. That's a lot of adjustment for you to have to make," Emily acknowledged. "I want you to be happy. I really think you can be if you give it a chance."
"You keep saying that," Grace complained, a mixture of annoyance and exasperation creeping into her voice. Emily had been asking Grace to give her a chance since they were back in Philadelphia. "I am giving you a chance. What more do you want from me?"
"You are now," Emily was quick to agree, not wanting the teenager's frustration to build to a point that the conversation was no longer productive. It was going well – or at least as well as could be expected – so far. Emily didn't want this to turn into a repeat of the night before. The benefit of being in the car was that Grace couldn't just decide she was done talking and leave. Emily never thought she'd be grateful for D.C. traffic, but as long as they were sitting in traffic, Emily had Grace as a captive audience. "You have been lately, even though I know you were hesitant at first. And I appreciate it, I do," she assured her daughter, the sincerity in her voice making Grace lower her guard a little. "But I know you're still getting to know me. I want you to have someone else to talk to when there are things that are bothering you – things you might not feel comfortable talking to me about."
"I can talk to Sky," Grace pointed out. "And she doesn't charge two hundred and thirty dollars an hour."
It was a good thing they were stopped at a red light because Emily's head snapped toward Grace with an absolutely incredulous expression. "She told you how much she charges?"
"No, it was just a wild guess," Grace responded sarcastically.
Emily couldn't fathom why any therapist would have told a thirteen-year-old how much her therapy cost, but the cat was out of the bag now and there was nothing Emily could do about it. When she called to ask about it later, she would realize, much to her chagrin, that it was Grace, not the therapist, who brought the subject up.
The light turned green and Emily went through the light and then turned onto their street. They were almost home, which meant she would lose her captive audience. She better wrap this up.
Getting back to Grace's comment on talking to Sky, Emily tried to address it as delicately as possible. "You can talk to Sky, but she isn't an expert in relationships between parents and children. Your therapist is. Her specialty is family therapy."
"It would be kind of hard for Sky to be an expert on that when her mom is in prison and she doesn't even know who her dad is," Grace said ruefully, thankfully not taking what Emily said the wrong way. "But you don't have to pay for-"
"Stop," Emily stopped her right there, the command coming out in a firm enough voice that Grace immediately shut up and listened. "You don't get to decide how I spend my money," Emily told the girl. "And I want you to have someone to talk to – someone who can help when things are difficult between us because it's not always going to be easy. She can help us work out our problems."
"Us? I didn't see you in there," Grace sassed, looking at Emily with raised eyebrows.
"I will be if you want me there or if Helen thinks it will be helpful," Emily told her.
"Next time you can come and we can hold hands and sing Kumbaya together," Grace said wryly.
Emily gave a slight laugh at the teenager's sarcastic comment. Was it weird that she was actually pleased her daughter had a sense of humor about a subject that she would barely even talk about the day before? "It's almost 5:30 already," Emily observed, glancing at the clock as she pulled into the parking garage. "I so do not want to cook tonight. How do you feel about pizza for dinner?"
"I like pizza," Grace responded eagerly.
"I know you do," Emily told her. "Cheese, right?"
"Yes, please."
The rest of the night was surprisingly normal after such a tumultuous twenty-four hours. Grace did her homework and then they ate dinner at the kitchen table. Because she hadn't been able to start on her homework until after they got home from therapy, Grace still had more to do and went back to her room to finish her work after they ate.
Grace didn't even object when Emily came into her room with Mother Night, planning to read another chapter or two before bed. After everything they talked about, Emily figured chances were that Grace had a lot on her mind right now. The one other time that Emily read to her, it helped get her mind off things so she could get some sleep. Emily preferred her daughter well-rested and at least somewhat cooperative to tired and shorter-fused than normal.
Although she still thought she was way too old to be read to like a little kid, Grace just rolled her eyes and moved all the way over to one side of the queen-size bed, giving Emily more space.
Taking that as an invitation, Emily situated herself sitting up in the bed with her back leaning against the headboard and opened the book to read. She pretended to ignore the way Grace's body stiffened next to hers and the way Grace shifted almost imperceptibly to ensure there was space between them, both signs Grace still wasn't completely comfortable - though with what Emily wasn't sure. Was it Emily herself or any physical touch or maybe just closeness in general that her daughter was wary of? Maybe all of the above, Emily thought wearily.
Unlike last time, Emily didn't even make it through one chapter before Grace was falling asleep next to her. The story was compelling enough to distract Grace from her thoughts; and, once she stopped thinking and started listening, Kurt Vonnegut's words read aloud in Emily's steady voice lulled her to sleep like a lullaby. Eyelids fluttering shut, her head rolled to the side and she burrowed into her pillow. Her hands clutched the comforter, pulling it closer, drawing in the warmth it provided.
Emily marked her place in the book but didn't leave right away. She took a moment, her gaze lingering on her daughter's face. Emily liked seeing her like this, so peaceful and relaxed.
"Goodnight, Grace. I love you," Emily whispered, finding it easier to say when Grace was asleep and unable to argue or question it. Maybe someday Grace would believe her when she said that.
A/N: I lost everything I had pre-written and am having to start re-writing from scratch, so this is subject to change if it doesn't work well when I start writing, but my plans are for the next chapter to include a scene with Emily, Grace and Derek at the house which is currently being renovated by Derek. I also have a very small appearance from Hotch coming up and had planned for Emily and Grace to have dinner with Elizabeth Prentiss sometime over the weekend.