CHAPTER 95

NOBODY REALLY WANTED ME...

Angie rolled down the window a bit as Emily drove in yet another direction that she was not familiar with.

"Sorry. I would have switched the AC on, but we are close already." Emily kept her eyes on the road this time.

Angie just smiled, her eyes curiously scanning everything around them.

"Not quite like Europe now, is it?" Emily pointed out as they drove.

"Not even close." Angie replied, noticing so many differences. This felt like a different world now.

Emily's phone was buzzing the entire time and Angie shot a glance at the screen, unintentionally, reading the name Tara on top of a very colorful and confusing photo in which a very pleasantly buzzed Emily Prentiss was hugging a slightly more drunk JJ who, in turn, had one hand around Tara's neck and then one leg up in the air, being held from behind by the colorful vision that Garcia was. All four girls were wearing identical pink bathrobes.

"Your friend might get worried." Angie pointed out after the third call got ignored by Emily.

"Oh, I had asked her to update me on something. It's about work. She can e-mail it to me."

"But she's calling…"

"She should know better than to call me for work on the 6th of the month."

"Why? Don't you work on the 6th? It's Monday…" Angie was now confused.

"Not until twelve." Emily did not elaborate on that, leaving Angie even more confused.

A few minutes later she pulled up in front of something that looked like a housing complex. She dropped her name at the entrance and had a visitor badge with her name on it, already waiting for her. After requesting one for Angie as well, they were finally walking down a hallway.

Angie hadn't noticed the name of this place. She had been busy thinking about those cute pink bathrobes that she had seen on the photo earlier.

"Miss Prentiss!" An elderly woman greeted.

"Mrs. Vallard, it is nice to see you again." Emily held her hand out to greet her formally.

"This is, uh…" Emily continued, but found it hard to put into words what Angela was to her. Not a colleague. Not a student. Not a friend. What the heck was she to Emily?

"I'm Angela Hunter, let's say, a new friend of Emily's." Angie also extended her hand to meet the woman, yet she chose to be vague about where she knew Emily from. This seemed like a personal errand for Emily and it didn't seem like she was there in her official capacity of an FBI Agent. So, maybe she never told this woman what her job really was. Angie was good at keeping secrets, even if they weren't her own.

"Nice to meet you, young girl. I have a feeling they would love having you here." The woman said while shaking Angie's hand.

"They?" Angie questioned, but all she received in reply was a push on the shoulder, urging her to walk towards a big door that led to the bigger wing of the building.

"Emmieeeeeee!" A whole bunch of voices screamed with joy, as soon as Emily walked in what looked like a huge living room.

Angela walked in right after her and found herself immediately tripping over a toy car.

"God, I hate cars!" She mumbled to herself, but then her face was filled with joy and content.

"Kiddos!" She said happily, clapping her hands and walking further in.

By this point Emily was already halfway into the room, navigating perfectly well between toys and knocked over objects on the floor. A few kids were now dragging themselves behind Emily, with one of them literally hanging on her leg, gripping tight so that she wouldn't fall off.

This looked like a jungle. It was loud and messy and colorful. It would surely be a bit too much for a normal person to handle. But not to Angie. There was nothing normal about her.

"You have pretty hair!" A girl who looked at the age of about seven, was now holding a strand of Angie's long hair, caressing it gently.

"And smile!" Another kid, younger boy, pointed out.

"Do you want to play with us?" Another kid asked.

"Do I want to?" Angie smiled. "We have to play together! I'm really good at hide and seek!" She added, chuckling lightly, but with a bit less of a smile than before. She wasn't just good at hide and seek. She was the master of that game! If she didn't want someone to find her, she'd assume a completely different identity and she'd believe in it like her life depended on it. One could look at her and still not see the person they were looking for - that's how good she was at hide and seek.

Emily caught that. She looked at Angela, now surrounded by kids, and the girl looked in her element.

"Want to draw with us instead?" The girl who was now obsessed with Angie's hair, asked as she was already dragging Angie to a corner with tables and little chairs.

"Draw? Oh yes, we should draw. I'm really bad at it, you will definitely enjoy my struggles." Angela laughed. Arts were far from her forte.

She sat down and a minute later was covered by at least seventeen different mixtures of paint colors.

Completely lost in her attempts to draw a princess, she forgot all about Emily. She didn't care why they were there. She wasn't one to ask many questions, occasionally. Other times she would want to know everything about everyone. It all depended on the mood and somewhat on the topic, too.

Meanwhile, Emily had been dragged to a different corner where she was now making noises, pushing a big toy truck down an imaginary road, in the middle of a fierce competition with another girl and two boys.

Angie noticed when Mrs. Vallard came up to Emily and even through the noise, she could make out some of the conversation. What she couldn't overhear, she read on their lips.

"Thank you so much for the continuous support, Miss Prentiss."

"It's my pleasure." Emily said with yet another one of her sad smiles.

"A lot of people donate and, don't get me wrong, we are very grateful for that. But not many come around here. The kids need human contact. They need to feel loved. They need to play and to meet good people. They don't care about the money and the material things."

Emily remained quiet and Angela could tell that she was mentally thinking of something.

"The kids have circled the 6th day of each month on the calendar in the dining hall. They can't wait to see you here. The younger ones keep asking me daily, how many days until they play with Emmie again."

"So sweet of them." Emily replied shortly. She didn't want to move her face a lot because tears were already threatening to fall and every blink could set them in motion.

"Thank you for the generous amount this month. We are now finally able to take them on a field trip somewhere. The elder ones are curious to see a few things around the city. We now can afford that and we have booked a small restaurant for lunch. They wanted pizza."

"You are welcome." Once again, Emily was being more quiet than usual.

"And this girl you brought along – she's really good with kids. Look at them, they already adore her. She's so nice and gentle. I love seeing them happy." Mrs. Vallard added. She had been keeping an eye out for Angie, as she was someone unfamiliar, but she had realized how gentle the girl was with all the kids, so it helped her relax a bit. She did not trust new people with the kids, not until she was sure they were good people who treated the kids nicely.

"Yeah, she has a good heart, that girl…" Emily's eyes laid on Angela, who was now rolling on the floor with a couple of other kids.

She had given up on trying to draw. Her picture of a princess looked like an accurate representation of the Grinch. Plus, the kids have moved on from drawing to something more active. Angie was showing them an exercise from the Academy, one she loved so much. They started laying on their back, then rolled around twice and jumped up to do a few jumping jacks before repeating the sequence.

"Are you really an angel?" One of the younger kids asked curiously.

"Far from it!" Angela started to laugh.

"But you look like an angel. And your voice is very sweet and you have shiny hair. So, you must be an angel." The same kid pointed out. She had heard Angela's name earlier and had assumed it meant something else.

"I was supposed to be an angel. But I'm not." Angie said, as they had now moved on to 'the staring game'. The kids were sat on the floor and everyone was bombarding her with questions and staring at her with eyes wide open, full of curiosity.

"Why not?" One of them asked.

"Well, I guess life had other plans for me." Angie smiled and it was bittersweet. She never spoke about that part of her life.

"But, if you were an angel, you could fly. And that would be really cool."

"And you'd have wings, too!"

"I think she would sparkle. She looks like she would be one of the sparkly angels."

"And she could change colors whenever she wanted!"

The kids' imagination was going wild and Angie kept laughing at all of their statements.

"If I was an angel, I wouldn't be here." She said, without the intention of giving them the grown-up information that being an angel would require someone to die first.

"But Emmie is an angel. And she's always here on the 6th. She never misses a month. Sometimes she comes earlier or later because she says work doesn't always allow her to be here on the 6th. And also, sometimes she comes more times during the month. She paid for our trip, too!" One of the elder girls said, pointing at Emily with one finger, as she was still stood on the other side of the room, talking to Mrs. Vallard.

"Always on the 6th…" Angie repeated to herself, quietly.

Emily walked over at that moment.

"I should have probably given you the heads up, but since you said you didn't care where you went, I figured you wouldn't mind following me to run a personal errand before work. I'm just sorry you're not learning anything right now." Emily said apologetically.

"On the contrary, Emily Prentiss…" Angie looked her straight in the eyes, noticing them to be a bit more moist then earlier, in the car. Emily looked away immediately.

"I am learning a whole lot." Angie finished her thought before one of the kids tackled her to the floor again and started tickling her.

"Oh, no you didn't!" Angie started laughing hysterically. "You have awoken the tickle monster!" She tickled right back, only to find herself underneath at least ten little monsters who had ganged up on her and were making it hard for her to breathe.

Mrs. Vallard walked over as well.

"I'm sorry. You know how hyperactive they are right after breakfast." She said to Emily, wondering if her friend might find this wild scene a bit too much.

"It's alright. She's one tough kid. She can take just about anything." Emily sighed and then found herself a group of kids who wanted to play.

Mrs. Vallard left them alone and went to check if all the kids' beds were now properly made.

At some point, Angie and Emily's play groups meshed into a one big mess and none of them knew what game was being played at that moment, but everyone participated full-heartedly.

An hour later, it was time for the kids' healthy snack, which that day consisted of sliced green apples and some seedless red grape. They were now sitting in the food area, next to the play space, which left Emily now completely on her own, with Angela, for the first time since being in the car earlier.

Angela, for once, was keeping her big mouth shut. She firmly believed her statement from that morning, the one about Emily not being ready to hear how someone else had profiled her.

"At this point, I'd rather you just come out and say it already." Emily spoke first.

The suspense was killing her. She was well aware of the fact that her every move had been profiled thoroughly. That, however, hadn't made her want to change her behavior or act differently. No. She was herself, the Emily Prentiss that she knew how to be. If people didn't like her this way, it was not her problem.

And Angela appreciated that transparency.

"There is nothing I'd like to say." She smiled, masking the fact that she wanted to keep her conclusions to herself, by a clever play of words.

Too bad Emily was too smart to fall for that. She met Angie's smart comment with some stone-cold silence.

A minute and a half later it felt beyond awkward. Now that the kids were all eating, the silence in the play room was unbearable.

"Fine. You are really good with kids, like, unbelievably good! I still don't get why you don't want to have any of your own." Angie gave up and blurted some of her thoughts out loud.

"There are plenty of kids who need love and affection. I don't have to give birth to someone, in order to love them." Emily's honesty was refreshing. It also made Angela both smile and frown contemporarily.

"How long have you been involved with this orphanage?"

"A while now…" Emily shrugged.

If she had to be honest, she had no idea. It felt like decades had passed and yet, it also felt like it was just yesterday that she had met the kids and the manager there – Mrs. Vallard.

Angie's face then formed a smile and there wasn't much else she wanted to get off her chest at that moment.

"Emmie?" A young girl ran towards the sofa where Emily and Angela were sitting.

She was adorable, with her now loosened piggy tails and her rosy cheeks from all the jumping earlier. She was now nibbling on a piece of apple and she had no idea a strand of hair was stuck on it before she reached to take a bite.

"Whoops, come here Nora." Emily put the kid on her lap and her hand brushed against her cheek, removing the strand of blond hair before she'd bite into it, along with the apple.

"Do you know that in two weeks I will have a mommy and daddy, too?" She said, her voice full of joy. Enthusiasm. Hope.

"Oh?" This was news to Emily.

Mrs. Vallard always called to inform Emily when new families were taking actions and starting the adoption process for any of the kids. However, she wasn't aware of Nora's new family arrangements.

"This is amazing, sweetheart. I am so happy for you." Emily said softly, enveloping the girl in a warm hug.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Nora whispered and Emily nodded.

Nora than gave Angie a doubtful stare. It wouldn't really be their secret if a third person heard it.

"It's okay, Nora. She knows all of my secrets." Emily chuckled, trying to ease Nora into whatever it was that she wanted to share.

It would either be another one of her confessions for stealing someone's slice if watermelon, which had happened last month, or she'd confess she had forgotten to brush her teeth in the morning, which had been the case two months ago. Emily remembered almost every detail of her conversations with the kids and Nora was one of her favorites. She was so vibrant, funny, loud, spontaneous, smart, active, and so much more.

"I kind of always secretly wished that it would be you. You know, that you'd want to be my mommy. I asked for it for Christmas last year and then for my birthday, too." Nora's confession came out of nowhere. It sent daggers to Emily's heart instantly.

"But then this family came and they picked me and I stayed over for a weekend and they asked Mrs. Vallard to let me be their kid forever." Nora continued. This had apparently happened quite recently and quite fast.

"Anyone would be lucky to have you as their child, sweet Nora. Never forget that!" Emily kissed the top of her head, just because she was so adorable and innocent.

Angie was now biting her bottom lip, mentally giving herself amazing reasons not to start bawling her eyes out. This scene was a bit too much to handle.

"Will you ever take a child?" Nora asked, because her five year old brain did not understand how direct and personal her question really was.

"Yes. I would love to have a child. But it would have to be a child who really wants me in their life. It's a two-way deal, you know? I want them, but they have to want me, too." Emily saw Nora looking at her in confusion.

"It's complicated. But yes, there is so much space for love in my heart. And I love you too, my little peanut. A paper wouldn't have changed anything. With my job, I am not able to take a young child and give it everything they need. However, I care about you and I'd request to see you in your new family house. Just wait for it." Emily finally managed to make herself a little more clear.

"I know you will. You are big and strong and you can do anything you want!" It was clear that Nora worshipped Emily and that only earned her more warm snuggles.

"And you will grow up to be big and strong as well." Emily then heard Mrs. Vallard's voice, calling out for her. She needed Emily's signature on one of the money transfer papers, so Emily excused herself and left Nora to sit on the couch, next to a now mute Angela.

While Emily walked off with Mrs. Vallard for the next few minutes, Nora took a sudden interest in Angie.

"You look like you're about to cry. Why?" Nora blurted out.

"Bless your beautiful five year old soul, Nora…" Angie said, half-sarcastically.

Nora was so incredibly direct and Angie could not help but find some similarities between the two of them. Both would say what was on their mind and both would feel someone else's pain instantly. Their sense of empathy was strongly developed, from an early age.

Angie moved to sit closer to Nora. Now that the kid was no longer in Emily's lap and being cuddled, she found herself instinctively wanting to continue Emily's good deed.

Nora leaned in right away, allowing Angie to put one hand on her shoulder and let her lay against her frame.

"I'm not sad. On the contrary, little girl - I am very happy that you are going to have a family. One that wants you…" Angie could not mask up the awkwardness. Yes, she really was genuinely happy for Nora, but comparing her situation to another one, one that Angie had given lots of thought about, it made her feel weird.

"What about you? Has anyone wanted you?" Those words sent shivers down Angie's spine.

Was this child a profiler? How did she know? People usually assumed that Angela had a family, but lived on her own now that she had legally been an adult for a few years.

She let her eyes shut for a second, seeing a line of images pop up in her head. An image of her, around Nora's age. She was smiling, standing right in front of a few other people, all smiling.

Then there was an image of her, on her own, with a frown, in the dark.

And then all the images after that, she was on her own. Occasionally there would be shadows of other people around her, but nothing too clear. Everyone else was blurry and she was the only focus of all images.

Until there it was – an image of her, being held by an amazing person, both smiling, in front of a fountain. Angela loved fountains. She had also allowed herself to love someone enough, for them to have become the focus in one of Angie's mental images.

And the next photo was of the most broken version of Angela she could ever remember. She was no longer the focus of her own memories. It looked like she wasn't even present, not as herself anyway, in those images that started rolling and changing quickly in front of her eyes. It almost gave her a headache. Her heart started beating faster and she had to force herself to open her eyes again, before those images would cause her any more pain.

"No, sweet Nora. Nobody really wanted me." She finally replied the question, with one hand caressing Nora's left arm, and the other – nervously slicking her own hair and tucking it behind her ears.

"But you are a good girl. Don't be sad. One day someone would want you and then you will be happy again." Nora offered her support and Angie had to bite her lips hard, on order to compose herself.

Emily had signed the missing paper quickly and she had returned back to the play area almost instantly, meaning she had the time to witness the whole scene. She never made a sound, standing behind the couch, just watching Angie and Nora's interaction. Everything about this Angela girl was screaming pain to Emily, but it was her words that got to her.

Those words would stay with Emily for a while.

They'd haunt her.

"Nobody really wanted me…"

Emily was the master of disguise. She could hold back her emotions better than anyone. She could smile and deceive people. Hell, if she could occasionally fool even JJ, then she was damn good. She had, ultimately, survived Ian Doyle, purely based on lies and deception.

But why was she finding it so incredibly hard to hold back those tears now? Why was Angela able to bring out the worst in Emily Prentiss? And also, the best in Emily Prentiss?

Emily gulped when she saw how swiftly Angela took her place with Nora. She knew Nora's history and how she had ended in the orphanage. Nora was extremely vibrant, but she was terrified of people. She would play with kids and talk to adults, she'd smile and run around, but there would always come the moment when she'd shut down. Completely. She would not let anyone, especially grown-ups, get closer than two feet. She wouldn't let them even touch her with one finger. She'd scream at the top of her lungs if someone tried to show her affection.

But then again, having been the sole witness of a violent crime at the age of five would do that to someone.

Nora's behavior was a copy-paste version of Emily. Both were terrified of people and of what they could do to other people. Emily, too, would never let someone touch her if she didn't know them extremely well, which was what was tripping her over, when it came to Richard. She had instantly given him the green light, letting him hold her, show affection, drive her across a foreign country. And Nora had instantly let Angela in, letting her hold her and letting her show her the affection that Nora had intentionally been depriving herself of since that unfortunate day when she had turned from a kid, to a witness on a cold, wooden stand.

Emily had worked that case. Her team had been unable to convince Nora to come out of hiding. They had found the little girl, scared out of her mind, locked in the Princess Castle in the patio of a house that had become the venue of yet another massacre that the BAU had been called to investigate.

Emily remembered how deeply disturbing that situation had been. Even Rossi, being the most experienced one of them all, had walked off at some point, wiping a lonely tear with the back of his hand.

JJ had, for some reason, freaked out. She had been a mess during the discovery of Nora.

Emily had kept her cool. On the inside she had been destroyed beyond repair, but on the outside she had been rock solid, knowing that there was a young girl whose life and well-being depended on her. She had negotiated for Nora, offering her own life in return. She had outsmarted the UnSub in her own profiler way and she had, since then, made sure Nora had a normal place to live and enough support. Emily had visited her almost every day, for months after that case.

Mrs. Vallard was amazing with children, having brought up three of her own, but Emily took it upon herself to make sure Nora was healing. And she was – with each visit by Emily, Nora was healing a little bit more. She had started smiling at first and then, after a long period when she wouldn't utter a word, she had started talking. But only to Emily. Then she had extended that privilege to Mrs. Vallard as well and then she had suddenly opened up to the kids, quickly becoming their favorite play pal.

Emily was proud of her. No wonder Nora had secretly wanted Emily to adopt her. But Emily just could not…

"Nobody really wanted me…"

Those words kept on ringing in Emily's head. She could not shake them. She had only heard them a minute ago and since then, a lot had ran through her mind.

Angie and Nora were still cuddled on the couch.

Usually the kids would never be allowed to walk off from the food area, but Mrs. Vallard had made an exception for Nora, now that Emily was there.

What was surprising was that Nora was now cuddling up to a complete stranger. It had taken her months to get back to a somewhat normal state, with Emily. But it had taken her minutes, to let Angie in. She either felt a bond with Angie or Angie was simply that good with kids.

Either way, Emily did not care. As long as Nora was happy, she would not question why.

And yet, Emily's eyes were glued on Angie. She saw her from behind, but the girl looked so peaceful and yet, so troubled herself.

"Nobody really wanted me…"

If those words resonated in Emily's mind one more damn time, she'd surely lose it.


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

"rmpcmfan" Yes, travel/languages is one of the many things they have in common. You'll read more about Angie's languages and interests. And yes, Angie is an empath who always feels bad for other people, going through pain. But at the same time, she does not give a crap about her own pain - she tries to block it out and not bother others with it. It's usually easy for people to trust Angela quickly enough, to show her their true emotions and not feel like they need to hide and pretend to be someone they're not (as just witnessed with Nora in this chapter, too). As for her profiling skills, she may find out that profiling on the field is completely different than profiling on paper. However, she might not even be given the chance to find it out...who knows which Unit she will end up doing her internship at? We dunno yet :P And finally - YES, Angie and Emily have TONS to offer each other, they don't even know it yet. "Angela Hunter" has to yet figure out exactly who "Emily Prentiss" is now, before they could move forward and complete each other, teach each other valuable life lessons (and occasionally - field work lol!).

"sweetkid45" Oh, don't worry :)! Will was only mentioned, to introduce the dramma for JJ. He probably won't appear again, I'll mention later on what happened tot hat story and be done with it, without using Will directly. I'm not his fan either hehe. It would have been funny if JJ was paired with some super cute guy and all the other girls would be drooling over him, before they'd find out he was JJ's boyfriend lol, imagine how awkward!