"Theo," Emily called softly once she entered the waiting area on the floor where their mother room was.
Theo looked up the sound of his name and rose to greet his sister and her husband. "Emily, Aaron."
"How's mom?" Emily asked.
"She's still unconscious," Theo answered. "The doctor came to see me Ed and Ray shortly before you arrived and it said it appears our mother has lost a great deal of weight."
"She looked fine last time I and Aaron saw her when we brought the family up so they could visit for a few hours but that was months ago," Emily said. "The children have been in school all except for the two youngest."
"We didn't see the point of bringing just the youngest two up when the other three wouldn't have been able to join them since they had school every weekday," Aaron said.
"It's hard to believe that Natalie is nine," Theo said thinking about his oldest niece.
"Yes, it really is," Aaron agreed with Theo. "The years sure have passed fast, but that's what happens when you're actually enjoying your life."
"So where are Edward and Raymond?" Emily asked, as Theo had been the only one in the waiting room when they had arrived.
"They just went to pick up some food from a late night place including for you and Aaron, because they knew you'd be here soon if at all possible. They should be back pretty soon," Theo explained.
"That was really nice of them," Aaron said. "I'm sure waiting is easier on a full stomach and that means we don't have to eat in the hospital cafeteria since the food is usually pretty lousy in such a place."
"And what would they have done with the extra food if Aaron and I hadn't been able to get a flight out until tomorrow?" Emily asked her brother smiling already knowing the answer.
"It would have been eaten probably by all three of us," Theo said smiling. "We wouldn't have let it go to waste I promise, not even if it had been cold."
"Well, that's not necessary, because Aaron and I managed to get here despite the extremely short notice," Emily said. "I realize however, it was an emergency so we didn't mind so much."
"True, we don't, as we can always catch up on our sleep when we get a hotel room for what remains of the night once we know how Elizabeth is," Aaron said.
"I would offer you a room for the night, but you know the house is full up," Theo said. "If it wasn't, you and Aaron could stay with me whenever you're in New York."
"It won't be long before your oldest son is off to college though," Emily said.
"True, but there's only a twin bed in there and it wouldn't fit both you and Aaron whenever you visit," Theo said.
"We don't mind staying in a hotel for a few days. It's not like we stay in some fleabag with uncomfortable mattresses, where the shower is just a trickle and where there's roaches running around in plain sight. We always stay in at least a four star and and it's usually a five star. Just depends on what we find that's available since we didn't make reservations in advance this time," Aaron assured Theo who nodded.
"I'm sure we'll find something suitable," Emily said, even as the sound of footsteps reached all of their ears.
Edward and Raymond finally entered the waiting room with several bags of food from a nearby diner.
Both men like Theo were very handsome with the Prentiss brown hair and brown eyes.
"Emily, Aaron," Edward greeted the pair.
"You sure did manage to get here fast considering you live in New Mexico," Raymond added.
"We were lucky to get a late last minute flight," Aaron answered, even as he shook both men's hands.
"So leave the kids?" Ray asked.
"There was no point of getting them out of bed," Emily said. "Penny and Dave will look after them until we get home. They were happy to do it when we told them we had an emergency."
"Why have them just sit in the waiting room for hours?" Aaron added. "A hospital is no place for children, as young as ours, unless absolutely necessary. They would have started to fidget after a few minutes and maybe caused a scene, because they were bored and tired."
"It was just better to have Dave and Penny look after them for a few days," Emily said.
"At least you have someone you trust to look after your kids," Theo said and Emily nodded.
"True and Dave and Penny love kids and have five of their own just like Aaron and I do," Emily agreed.
"Yeah, your house is pretty full," Edward said smiling having been up to visit with his wife and the kids in the summer when there was no school.
"Yes, it is, but there's still plenty of guestrooms for visitors, ever since Dave and Aaron had that new wing put in a few years ago," Emily grinned. "We are done having kids, as we both have five and while I wouldn't have minded a few more I'm older now so the possibility is higher of me dying in childbirth."
The last part of Emily statement was not true as she was immortal and she wasn't about to die in childbirth, but her brothers didn't know that.
"I think five is plenty personally," Aaron said. "It might've been nice to get another girl since we only have two but it just didn't work out that way."
"Still, at least you got two girls who can play together as it isn't like when we were growing up and Emily was the only girl amongst the four of us," Theo said.
"If mother had never overreacted all those years ago and allowed me to invite some of my girlfriends over every few days it would've been different," Emily agreed. "Yes, our girls are certainly close, but so are Dave's and Penny's daughters with our two, so they don't lack for playmates like I did when I was growing up."
"That's one of the great things about us all living together, plenty of playmates for our kids," Aaron said.
"That's true," Raymond agreed. "I'm glad you're doing so well Emily. You certainly deserve every happiness considering all our childhoods. I know it's been said, but you were the only girl and having raised a daughter myself I now understand you must've been really lonely, even with all three of us there."
"Me too, I've come to understand over the last few years that children need their own sex to play with and you didn't have that," Edward added. "My girls are always playing with their cousins and I don't mind that at all, unlike when we were young."
"At least you all live in New York so your children can play together often," Emily said. "However, you all know why I moved away, so that's not possible at least not very often for my children to play with yours."
"Yeah, we do," Theo agreed looking at his brothers who nodded.
A nurse appeared in the doorway of the waiting room and looked at the five of them. There were the only five in the waiting room at present.
"I'm looking for Theo Prentiss," the nurse said.
"That's me," Theo said, "but you can say anything in front of them these are my brothers Edward and Raymond and my sister Emily. Oh and her husband Aaron."
"How's our mother doing?" Emily asked the nurse.
"She's awake and I'll allow one of you to go and see her for no more than 10 minutes and it's way past visiting hours. You can visit again tomorrow," the nurse informed the group
The nurse didn't say so, but it was just her luck that four of the most handsome men she had seen a long time were married. Well, at least she assumed the three male Prentiss were married while Aaron Hotchner was the husband of their sister Emily, so that meant he was definitely taken. It was too bad since he was drop dead gorgeous and she was unmarried, as she had divorced her husband several years ago.
It was too bad as Aaron was one handsome bloke with his dark hair and eyes and his tall muscular form.
"So has the doctor said what exactly happened to caused mother to collapse?" Edward asked the nurse.
"We know that she had apparently lost a great deal of weight but other than that we really don't know anything," Theo added.
"Aaron and I saw her several months ago when we brought the children up to visit her," Emily said. "She seemed OK then, not like she lost a lot of weight rapidly."
"So that tells us it was probably in the last six months?" Raymond asked.
"Yes, about that, as Natalie has been in school and so are her two younger brothers, so it's not like we could take a week just to come to visit mother like we did before Nat started school," Emily said. "You actually live in New York so you should have visited her to see how she was doing as you don't have to go any great distance to do that."
"I suppose we should have," Theo admitted looking at his brothers who looked ashamed of themselves. They had basically ignored Elizabeth Prentiss, as if she didn't exist and never went to visit her if they could get away with it. She just hadn't been mother material and while they had been fed, clothed and had regular health checkups that was about it.
They had never been physically abused just neglected so they'd been bored a lot as children because they hadn't had very many toys at all to play with due to their parents inattention. Their mother was lucky that none of them had runaway, especially Emily. Sure, they had gotten out of the house and on various outings, but those had been hardly any fun has been absolutely no time for mischief or to goof off, to just be kids. While they'd had a television and it could be entertaining it had got boring quickly, as that was basically all they had to do.
"I understand all of your reluctances to spend much time around our mother, believe me, I do, but it wouldn't have hurt you to take turns and visit her every few days at least," Emily said. "Make sure she's eating and taking care of herself."
"The servants..." Edward suggested.
"The servants can't force mother to eat like we can as they could be fired," Emily told Edward frowning at her brother who looked abashed. "You should know mother well enough to know that she would do exactly that if a servant tried to tell her what to do, even if it was for her own good. You're not so cruel, as to get one of them fired, because their position is their livelihood. You are not that vindictive."
"When Emily's right she's right Eddy," Theo told his brother. "It wouldn't have hurt any of us to spend half an hour or so checking on mother every couple of days. We do not want to emulate her by being cruel and thoughtless. We swore we would turn out differently from her and our father back when we were kids. We swore that we would love our families and care about others, that we would be kind, thoughtful and nice. We swore we would not overreact like our mother did when Emily asked to have a friend over when we had children of our own when they told us something we didn't agree with when we were young. Let's not break that vow."
"I had actually forgotten about that vow," Raymond admitted obviously remembering the vow they took years ago now all four of them together.
"So had I, but we were young when we took it," Edward admitted.
"I think I was only 11 or so which would've made Theo 17 and about to head off the college the following year," Emily said.
"That's about right and that would've made me 15 and Ray 13," Edward said.
"All right, I suppose it won't kill us to check on mother every couple of days," Raymond finally acquiesced. "If she dares give me a hard time though, I'm going to tell her exactly what I think of her parenting skills and it won't be complementary," Raymond warned.
"I won't be able to blame you if you do," Theo admitted and Edward nodded in complete agreement.
"Neither will I," Emily told her brothers. "She already knows what I think of her, but I still brought the kids to spend a few hours with her or at least I did before Natalie started school, as I would have felt guilty otherwise."
"I'm surprised you even do that much," Raymond noted. "Considering how she treated you, her only daughter."
"Aaron and I talked about it and we just decided to do it, though she is never be allowed to be alone with them, as that's one thing we agreed on," Emily said.
"We did agree on that," Aaron who had been silent as the discussion continued spoke up, "I thought Emily showed great maturity on her part to allow a woman who wasn't exactly a mother to any of you to see her grandchildren, even if that was only once a month or so for a few hours, though that was before Natalie started school."
"I'm not completely heartless, even if mother tried to turn all of us into carbon copies of herself," Emily said. "We're lucky that none of us turned to alcohol once we were grown up or started using drugs to deaden the memories, because our childhoods were so bad. It really wasn't much better than being in an orphanage where the people in charge don't give a damn about you. The only difference is we were never starved, had regular health checkups and new clothes to wear and those were about the only advantages."
"So who wants to be the first to go visit mother and the rest of us can go tomorrow," Theo asked his brothers and Emily.
"I guess I'll go," Emily said. "I might as well get it out-of-the-way and get my obligatory visit over with."
"I'll be here when you get back," Aaron told Emily giving her a quick kiss on the cheek watching her walk away with the nurse who had been listening from the doorway.
~~~The Immortals and the Businessman 3~~~
"Is what all of you were discussing true?" the nurse asked Emily once they were out of earshot of the waiting room.
"Yes," Emily answered shortly, as they walked towards Elizabeth's room.
"That is so sad that your mother couldn't just love you and show you that she did," the nurse said shaking her head.
"That's the understatement of the millennium," Emily said with a snort. "I'm the youngest, so I was the last to get away from home and when I went off to college I never looked back, never went home for the summer or for any holiday. I stayed with Theo since he graduated years before I did and was done with college by the time I went. He had a nice apartment and I happily slept on his couch and that way I didn't have to go home to a loveless, friendless environment. As far as I know, mother never even missed me, never called to make sure I was OK and if she did I don't know about it. She was too busy running her business to notice the absence of her daughter or any of her children."
"People like that shouldn't procreate," the nurse said shaking her head feeling sympathetic for the Prentiss children when they had been young and defenseless.
"Don't think I don't agree with you, but there was a large inheritance on the line and my father Alan Prentiss had to have at least four children in order to get it. My parents marriage was arranged and they just weren't suited to be married, but my mother at least was forced into it by my grandfather," Emily said. "The only problem with arranged marriages is the children are often left their own devices. Our nanny was more of a mother to the four of us then our own was and I hardly ever saw my father as he was too busy politicking, so he was never home. I'm actually surprised that they managed to produce four children considering."
"I'm sorry that you and your brothers had to grow up in that environment," the nurse said fill in truly sympathetic.
"It doesn't really matter anymore, as I've had my four kids so I got my portion of the inheritance, just a few years ago and technically, I never have to see my mother again if I don't want to."
"You don't hate her though, as I heard you talking," the nurse said.
"No, I don't but that doesn't mean I want to spend very much time with her as we would only argue," Emily said. "Luckily, Aaron and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as we moved there right after our honeymoon and my mother has absolutely no influence in another country. She only would've tried the meddle in my life like she's been doing all my life when I lived here in New York fore I met Aaron."
"Oh, she's one of those," the nurse chuckled it sounding quite sardonic. "One of those mothers that just can't help, but meddle in her children's lives, trying to correct what they see as errors on their part."
"Never realizing that her children are adults now and if they happen to be wrong decisions then it's up to them to fix them and that they don't need her unasked for interference," Emily agreed. "That's one reason I moved far away once I married Aaron and it's been wonderful to be able to relax."
"Yet here you are," the nurse said.
"Just because we don't get along doesn't mean I don't love her it's just better if we live as far apart as possible," Emily said.
"I've encountered people like your mother before and it never ends well. Children that once grown didn't want anything to do with their mother or possibly their father, because they were basically ignored as children and brought up by the servants. "Here we are," the nurse said finally pushing the door to Elizabeth Prentiss's room open so Emily could enter.
~~~The Immortals and the Businessman 3~~~
