Elysium, 5/21
Title: Elysium
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Romance/Angst
Summary: They thought that it was only going to be one night. They were wrong. An unexpected pregnancy leads Emily and Derek to reevaluate their lives.
Author’s Note: If you have the time, please read this post.
Chapter Four
Nothing in Emily’s closet seemed quite good enough.
The first time she’d met Fran Morgan, Emily had worn a pantsuit, but then, she had been on the job. Hopefully, tonight’s dinner would be less about asking invasive questions about Morgan’s personal life - at least, not those kind of questions.
Maybe, if they actually were together, or even if there wasn’t a baby involved, she would have taken the opportunity to ask a ridiculous amount of embarrassing questions, if only to tease Morgan about it.
She settled on a burgundy v-neck shirt, with a knee-length skirt in black. Dark stockings and low-heeled boots complemented the outfit.
On the way over, she stopped at the liquor store, intent on picking up a bottle of wine - wine that she couldn’t even drink. Even then, she had absolutely no idea what Morgan was going to cook - should she get red? White? Maybe beer would be better. In the end she decided on a nice Cabernet Sauvignon - even if it didn’t get drunk tonight, it would still be there later on.
She had never actually been to Morgan’s house before, which felt kind of strange - she’d known him for four years, and yet any time they interacted outside of work, it was either at her place, or somewhere else entirely. It was interesting - Emily knew that he owned at least three other houses for renovation purposes, but the one he lived in didn’t seem particularly extravagant at all. Maybe because big houses just feel lonely if you didn’t have anyone else around - Emily could attest to that herself.
She was greeted at the gate by an enormous German Shepherd - Clooney, apparently. Morgan talked about him sometimes, but this was the first time she had actually met the dog. She held out her hand for him to sniff, but was instead confronted with a couple of short, sharp barks.
Shit.
Emily didn’t exactly want to open the gate to an angry dog, but she wasn’t about to call for help, either. Luckily, she was saved from either option when the front door opened, and Morgan stepped out.
‘Clooney, down,’ he commanded, and the dog dropped quickly, giving a short whine.
‘Sorry,’ Morgan said, giving her an apologetic look. ‘I forgot - you’ve never been to my place before, have you?’
Emily shook her head. ‘No…I guess that’s a little weird.’
‘Yeah,’ he shrugged. ‘A little. He’ll still probably bark at you for a while, but after he gets used to you, you’ll only need to worry about him licking your face off and getting dog hair all over your clothes.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ Both as a child and as an adult, she’d never really had time for pets. There was a point where she’d almost considered getting a cat, but the thought of being away weeks at a time had crushed that idea before it had the chance to grow.
The gate swung open, and she let Clooney sniff her hand properly. He was a little unsure about it at first, but Morgan’s presence was apparently enough to assure him that she wasn’t a person that was about to try and break in through the side window.
‘Good boy.’ She patted him on the head, and gave him a quick scratch behind the ears.
Morgan grinned. ‘See. He likes you.’
She gave him a nervous smile. Dogs were easy. People were hard. From just a single meeting, Emily could tell that Fran Morgan was very protective of her son - of all her children. Not just any girl was good enough for Derek Morgan.
Morgan opened the door to let them back inside, and Clooney tried to push past him. Morgan gave a, ‘Hey, Clooney - outside,’ and the dog stopped, giving a kind of a growling moan that was a sharp contrast to his barks from before.
‘Aw,’ Emily said, giving the Clooney another rub to the head. ‘Daddy won’t let you inside?’
‘Daddy won’t let him inside because he jumps all over Nana’s sofa-bed,’ Morgan explained.
‘Fair enough,’ Emily conceded. She stepped inside, looking around appreciatively. The house was small, but personable. Photos of his mother and sisters lined the wall, along with one of a handsome man in dress blues who she took to be his father.
He led her through to the kitchen, where Mrs. Morgan sat at the breakfast counter, watching the news on the small TV there. Emily found herself suddenly struck down by a ridiculous bout of nerves. She’d met Prime Ministers, and Princes and a ridiculous amount of Ambassadors, and yet she was not quite able to look Derek Morgan’s mother in the eye.
‘Hi,’ Emily managed, in a soft voice. She could feel her cheeks starting to flush, and wondered if the make-up she’d applied would cover it. She was completely unprepared for the bear hug that was given in response.
‘Nice to see you again, Agent Prentiss.’
‘Please, Mrs. Morgan - Emily.’
‘Only if you call me Fran.’ Emily bit her lip. She’d been brought up to address her elders by their title, rather than their first name. It still threw her, to do otherwise.
‘Of course.’ She passed the bottle of wine to Morgan, who stared at it for a moment, apparently not quite sure what to do with it. There was no wine rack that Emily could see, so he just set it down on the counter.
‘I’m making spaghetti,’ Morgan said, an announcement that led to a brief, but apparently meaningful exchange of looks between him and his mother.
‘Everything okay?’ Emily asked, torn between amusement and concern.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Morgan answered, a little too quickly. Emily raised an eyebrow. Morgan was a good profiler, but he was a terrible liar. Still, he was distracted by the cooking, which meant that Emily found herself being grilled by the woman that was to be her child’s grandmother. She’d seen Morgan get downright scary during interviews, and she wondered if he got that from his father.
No.
He got it from his mother.
It wasn’t an unpleasant interrogation, like some of her own mother’s ended up being, but it was persistent.
‘So where did you grow up?’ The question was so innocent, and yet Emily couldn’t even begin to fathom how she was going to answer it.
‘Um,’ she said finally. ‘Everywhere.’
Fran seemed confused for a moment, so Emily clarified. ‘My parents were - are - Ambassadors. We moved around a lot. I was born in Hungary, and probably lived in at least a half a dozen countries after that.’
‘Any siblings?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I preferred my own company for the most part, anyway. It wasn’t exactly easy to keep in touch with people back then, and it just seemed more convenient to not care about it.’ She bit her lip. She had no idea why she was telling Derek Morgan’s mother all of this. Maybe it was because she wanted to try and prove that she wasn’t taking advantage of her son - that she genuinely cared for him.
‘And how did you join the BAU?’
Emily bit her lip. The truth of course, was “I was brought in by the Section Chief to spy on the team,” but Morgan didn’t know that, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell his mother that. ‘Uh…transfer,’ she said. ‘I worked in the St. Louis Field Office for a while, and then Chicago for a few years, before coming to the BAU.’
The questions then seemed to shift away from Emily herself, and more towards the baby. Unfortunately, they weren’t exactly questions that Emily had had a chance to discuss with Morgan. Thanks to the one-time nature of their sexual encounter, she could guess due date pretty well, but otherwise, they’d have to wait until their appointment on Thursday to find out for sure.
A horrific thought crossed through Emily’s mind, that perhaps she wasn’t really pregnant at all, and the half dozen tests that she bought had been skewed by some hormone imbalance, and the vomiting was from a phantom illness. It might make their situation at work a lot easier, but damned if she didn’t dread it anyway.
The next question, though, made her forget all about that fear.
‘So when’s the wedding?’ Emily’s heart damn near stopped, and she was rendered speechless until she heard, Morgan’s response.
‘Mama, leave her alone.’ He said it with a grin, at which point Emily realized that Fran had been joking. She shook herself. Hell of a joke.
‘I’m sorry,’ Fran said, with a grin that matched her son’s. ‘The look on your face, though…’ There was a long pause. ‘I understand that you aren’t together, but you should consider what you’re going to do after the baby’s born. Raising a child is a lot harder than most people think.’
‘We know, mom,’ Derek said, a little more seriously than his words had been before. ‘We haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet.’
That wasn’t exactly true. They had spoken about it briefly, at which point they’d both come to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to move in together, but she was pretty sure that she and Morgan both were actively trying to forget about the conversation.
After all, moving in together was capital S serious. Moving in together was the kind of thing that couples suggested to each other after having been together for a while. Only one of Emily’s relationships had ever reached that stage, and even then, it had failed spectacularly.
Since then, she hadn’t really tried so much. Of all the possible outcomes in her personal life, this was pretty far down the list. Above “accidentally get married to Hotch after too much alcohol in Vegas” but below “date sleazy British guy, because there’s nothing else going on in life.”
Emily thanked God for small favors then, because if it had been Mick who had gotten her pregnant, she doubted things would have been the same. He was a nice enough guy, if a little arrogant, but she didn’t have the same history with him that she did with Morgan.
Apparently Fran sensed the awkwardness that the question had brought on, because she changed the subject abruptly, and Emily found herself being asked what she did in her spare time. Somehow, it seemed a little more embarrassing to admit her schedule to Morgan’s mother, even if she seemed to take it much better than Morgan himself had. Soon, they were discussing Pride and Prejudice, of all things, while Morgan started to cook.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed a little flustered. Fran followed her gaze and gave a conspiratorial smile. That, in conjunction with the look that she’d given Morgan earlier, probably meant that there had been some discussion over the cooking aspect of the evening.
There was something about the job that wasn’t exactly conducive to cooking regular nutritional meals. Sometimes, when you were coming in at 3am after a week hunting down a sexual sadist, it was just easier to order pizza. Emily had picked up a few things over the years, whether it was as a child in an embassy kitchen, or as a sleep-deprived teenager in need of real food post finals week.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the aroma that soon filled the kitchen was amazing; Italian food always smelt the best.
‘He looks so serious,’ Emily said with a laugh, watching Morgan’s brow furrow as he tasted the sauce. He looked back at her with a somewhat amused grin, which fell away completely, when Fran said:
‘Sweetie, the pasta’s boiling over,’ at which he turned back towards the stove quickly. Emily suppressed a laugh. This was a man who kicked down doors and stared down serial killers without a single iota of fear crossing his face, but the moment he started serving out dinner, Emily noticed the nervousness that she rarely, if ever, saw in the man.
The fact that he was nervous about something like this was almost endearing. And really, there was nothing to be nervous about. The pasta was a little bit overcooked, and the sauce was sweeter than she was used to, but it wasn’t as though he’d made so critical error, like adding half a cup of baking soda by mistake.
‘That was nice,’ she told him with a smile. The look on his face was caught somewhere between surprise and suspicion, as though he wasn’t entirely sure whether she was telling the truth.
‘Who wants ice-cream?’ Fran asked, standing to collect their plates. That was an offer that Emily couldn’t refuse; over the past few weeks, she’d been eating a ridiculous amount of ice-cream. Still, she was somewhat relieved by the fact that her cravings had remained relatively normal. The most unusual one she could claim was peanut butter on pancakes, which was a far cry from pickles with dark chocolate, or any of the cravings that JJ had had.
Morgan hadn’t been lying: he did have plenty of ice-cream. It didn’t quite mesh with her mental schema of Derek Morgan, fitness buff.
True, he did eat a lot of junk while they were on the road - all the team did - but she still couldn’t quite picture him as the kind of guy that would veg out on the sofa with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and the remote control.
Maybe she didn’t know him that well at all.
That was the problem with being profilers; they were so intent on cataloguing each other’s behavior, while still hiding their own. For all she knew, Morgan pole danced on his off days.
Not very likely, her brain said. If nothing else, this was an opportunity to rectify that ignorance.
By the time they’d finished dessert, it was almost 8 o’clock. Not particularly late by most descriptions of the word, but then Emily found herself getting tireder earlier, as the pregnancy progressed. Or maybe it was just psychosomatic.
‘I should get going,’ she said with a yawn. Tomorrow was Monday, which meant work, and she didn’t want to tired herself out before the week had even started.
‘Thank-you for dinner,’ Emily stopped awkwardly in front of Morgan, unsure as to which gesture would be appropriate for the situation. In the end, she settled on a stiff hug, which made the situation even more awkward.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ Emily said, and Fran didn’t correct her, something for which Emily was grateful. She’d much prefer to remember this as their first meeting, rather than the time in Chicago that had brought up such painful memories for Morgan.
‘I’ll walk you out,’ Morgan said decidedly, and Emily didn’t argue.
They stopped at the gate, Clooney sniffing at their hands in earnest, as though they might have had the foresight to save him some food. ‘I…I had a nice time tonight,’ Emily said. ‘Your mother’s a very nice woman.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
‘I can see where you get your charm from.’ She gave a nervous laugh.
Morgan took her hand, his skin warm and soft. Part of her wondered what it would be like to hold that hand every single day.
She walked out the gate, and tried not to look back.
…
Morgan let himself back inside, a little confused. The evening had gone well, he thought - much better than he’d expected - and yet there was still a shadow of doubt that hung over him. Maybe it was the horror she’d expressed at the idea of marriage - it had seemed funny at the time, but now he was wondering whether the thought of marrying him was really that terrifying.
She’s an Ambassador’s daughter, he reminded himself. The kind of girl he never thought he’d be able to get with. She’s too good for you, was another fleeting thought.
She might be from the upper echelons of life, but she’s still the girl that can damn near drink you under the table. She’s still the girl that would sooner drink beer and watch sports than go to a dinner party.
He shook his head.
‘Everything okay?’ his mother asked, as he stepped back inside, careful to make sure that the overenthusiastic Clooney did not follow him.
‘Yeah, I guess…’ he said, very much aware of the morose tone that his words had taken on.
‘Oh, sweetie, if you were really that worried about what she thought, you should have let me cook.’
‘It’s not that,’ he said automatically, but maybe it was, a little. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want this, but at the same time, he was nowhere near ready for it, either.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am a grown man, Mama.’
‘Which is precisely the reason you should have let me cook. You know, maybe I should have sent you to Harvard, so there was no way you could have come home for dinner every night. Maybe then you would have learned how to boil water.’
‘I can boil water, I just got a little distracted by the two beautiful women talking about me behind my back.’
Fran raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re too old to be sucking up to me like that, Derek.’ There was a long pause. ‘And if you really think that Emily’s beautiful, you should tell her that.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ he argued. He’d called a lot of women beautiful over the years - usually in the course of wooing them at the bar, or on the dance floor - and none of those times, had it ever been more than just words.
This time, it was different, because he meant it.
…
Monday went quickly, all things considered. They were still off rotation, which meant paperwork, and consults, and all those other things that happened in the off hours. Privately, Emily was relieved. If they were called in on a case, then that meant she’d be stuck in some police station doing victimology, because there was no way in hell that Hotch was going to let her out in the field. Hell, there was no way that Morgan was going to let her. She wouldn’t be surprised if he cuffed her to door, just to stop her from leaving.
In spite of that, though, she still found herself exhausted as she unlocked her front door. Something told her that the next few months, she’d be feeling nothing but exhausted. Except maybe nauseous. It’d be worth it, in the end.
That’s what she kept telling herself.
No matter how awkward it was to deal with Hotch’s disapproving looks, with the threat of Strauss hanging over them, with whatever the hell it was that was happening between them…in the end, they would have a child.
The sound of her phone ringing cut through the air; it was the landline, rather than her cell, which meant that it wasn’t one of the team. For some reason, they always called her cell.
It took her a few seconds to recognize the number that Caller ID provided, even though she’d dialed it not two days ago. ‘Hey, mom.’
‘Hello, Emily. Are you at home?’
‘Well I picked up, didn’t I?’ Emily bit on her tongue a moment too late; the words were far too bitter than was warranted. ‘I’m sorry, I just…’
‘Don’t be sorry, Emily - I was very busy Saturday, and I didn’t give you the attention you deserved.’
Emily’s eyebrow rose. All things considered, her mother hadn’t exactly given her that kind of attention in a long time, and it was rare that she actually apologized for it.
‘I was wondering if I could come over for coffee?’
The eyebrow rose even further. “Coffee” had a very specific meaning to it. The Ambassador could have just as easily suggested dinner, but coffee implied that there would be talking, and that was something Emily wasn’t quite sure she could handle. It wasn’t that she was afraid of her mother, just that the distance between them had become so great over the years that she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d say.
What she did say was, ‘That sounds nice,’ which wasn’t exactly true, and she was pretty sure they both knew it.
She hung up the phone, and gave her condo a cursory glance-over, checking that nothing was out of place. After a beat, she decided that she didn’t particularly care if anything was out of place. That was the kind of thing that hadn’t really mattered in a long time. She wondered why it had taken her so long to realize it.
Maybe it was those long forgotten memories that had her wringing her hands right up until the moment her mother knocked on the door.
It was only a couple of months since they’d last seen each other - April seemed to ring a bell - and yet the hug that Elizabeth Prentiss delivered as soon as the door opened suggested that it could have been years.
‘Mom…’ Emily started. She bit her lip, and just cherished that rare feeling of her mother’s arms around her. The Ambassador pulled away, a little stiffly.
‘Let me see you.’ She looked Emily up and down, but it wasn’t that critical kind of look that Emily was used to. ‘How far along?’
‘Um…six weeks, give or take,’ Emily said, suppressing the frown that was brewing. This was a side of her mother that she’d never really seen before, but then, all things considered, she’d never really had the opportunity to see it. Maybe, all those years ago, if things had gone differently…
Still, while she sometimes wondered what life would have been like if she’d never had the abortion, she didn’t regret it. Not in that way. She might have loved that child, but there was no way she could have been a proper mother to it. And maybe, she still felt a little guilty for not feeling that regret.
The unasked question hung heavy in the air. Obviously, the child wasn’t the result of an immaculate conception.
‘You remember my colleague,’ she started, and those words were enough for the Ambassador to arch a neatly plucked eyebrow. ‘Derek Morgan,’ Emily finished, and the eyebrow rose further. She vaguely wondered whether Hotch or Rossi or even Reid would have been seen as a more acceptable suitor.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said smoothly, and there was no lie in her voice. After all, diplomats relied on remembering names and faces and…usefulness.
‘He’s the father,’ Emily said bluntly; there was no amount of cushioning that would salvage the situation. ‘Why don’t I make that coffee,’ she suggested; the kitchen wouldn’t be much of an escape, but it was better than standing there awkwardly. In lieu of anything else, Emily said, pulling mugs down from the cupboard, ‘My first sonogram’s on Thursday.’
‘Have you discussed…arrangements?’ Emily almost rolled her eyes. The question wasn’t an unexpected one, but she was still a little resentful that it had been asked without Morgan there to back her up. Maybe it was better that way - after all, he didn’t know Elizabeth Prentiss the way Emily did.
‘Not yet,’ Emily said, adding, before the Ambassador could say anything, ‘We’re taking things slowly.’ It wasn’t the best word choice, considering that “taking things slowly” didn’t exactly fit well with “impregnation during one night stand.”
Emily didn’t need to look to know that her mother’s lips were pursed - that she was holding back any criticism with every fiber of her being. After all, even in this day and age, children with out of wedlock pregnancies weren’t exactly stellar for any politician’s career, even if the child did happen to be almost forty.
‘Have you told your father yet?’
Emily stopped. She’d been hoping to avoid that particular topic, considering the relationship that she had with her father could be considered even worse than the one that she had with her mother. It wasn’t that he was a bad person, or even a bad father - he’d just never really been around a lot. Considering the turbulences of her childhood, and the absences of her mother, that was really saying something.
She shook her head. ‘To be honest, I don’t even know where he is right now.’
‘I’ll make sure he’s here when we go to dinner this weekend,’ Emily’s mother assured her, and Emily blinked.
‘Dinner?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said smoothly. ‘You don’t think I’ll let you get away with keeping the father of your child in the dark, do you? I’d like to talk to him.’
Emily had the sudden mental image of Derek handcuffed to a chair in a darkened interrogation room, gaunt and terrified.
‘He’s not harboring state secrets, mother,’ Emily said, exasperated.
‘No, but he is one of my daughter’s suitors, which is arguably a far worse crime.’ While there was some tone of amusement in her mother’s voice, Emily still wasn’t quite sure whether to accept the situation for what it was, or pack a bag and run away to Egypt.
Running away from problems never makes them easier, said a voice inside her head. Especially, she thought, especially considering the fact that there was a long list of people ready to drag her home before she even made it to the airport.
‘Saturday night,’ Elizabeth instructed, in a voice that made grown men shiver in fear. ‘Eight o’clock.’
She almost pitied Derek.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Romance/Angst
Summary: They thought that it was only going to be one night. They were wrong. An unexpected pregnancy leads Emily and Derek to reevaluate their lives.
Author’s Note: If you have the time, please read this post.
Chapter Four
Nothing in Emily’s closet seemed quite good enough.
The first time she’d met Fran Morgan, Emily had worn a pantsuit, but then, she had been on the job. Hopefully, tonight’s dinner would be less about asking invasive questions about Morgan’s personal life - at least, not those kind of questions.
Maybe, if they actually were together, or even if there wasn’t a baby involved, she would have taken the opportunity to ask a ridiculous amount of embarrassing questions, if only to tease Morgan about it.
She settled on a burgundy v-neck shirt, with a knee-length skirt in black. Dark stockings and low-heeled boots complemented the outfit.
On the way over, she stopped at the liquor store, intent on picking up a bottle of wine - wine that she couldn’t even drink. Even then, she had absolutely no idea what Morgan was going to cook - should she get red? White? Maybe beer would be better. In the end she decided on a nice Cabernet Sauvignon - even if it didn’t get drunk tonight, it would still be there later on.
She had never actually been to Morgan’s house before, which felt kind of strange - she’d known him for four years, and yet any time they interacted outside of work, it was either at her place, or somewhere else entirely. It was interesting - Emily knew that he owned at least three other houses for renovation purposes, but the one he lived in didn’t seem particularly extravagant at all. Maybe because big houses just feel lonely if you didn’t have anyone else around - Emily could attest to that herself.
She was greeted at the gate by an enormous German Shepherd - Clooney, apparently. Morgan talked about him sometimes, but this was the first time she had actually met the dog. She held out her hand for him to sniff, but was instead confronted with a couple of short, sharp barks.
Shit.
Emily didn’t exactly want to open the gate to an angry dog, but she wasn’t about to call for help, either. Luckily, she was saved from either option when the front door opened, and Morgan stepped out.
‘Clooney, down,’ he commanded, and the dog dropped quickly, giving a short whine.
‘Sorry,’ Morgan said, giving her an apologetic look. ‘I forgot - you’ve never been to my place before, have you?’
Emily shook her head. ‘No…I guess that’s a little weird.’
‘Yeah,’ he shrugged. ‘A little. He’ll still probably bark at you for a while, but after he gets used to you, you’ll only need to worry about him licking your face off and getting dog hair all over your clothes.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ Both as a child and as an adult, she’d never really had time for pets. There was a point where she’d almost considered getting a cat, but the thought of being away weeks at a time had crushed that idea before it had the chance to grow.
The gate swung open, and she let Clooney sniff her hand properly. He was a little unsure about it at first, but Morgan’s presence was apparently enough to assure him that she wasn’t a person that was about to try and break in through the side window.
‘Good boy.’ She patted him on the head, and gave him a quick scratch behind the ears.
Morgan grinned. ‘See. He likes you.’
She gave him a nervous smile. Dogs were easy. People were hard. From just a single meeting, Emily could tell that Fran Morgan was very protective of her son - of all her children. Not just any girl was good enough for Derek Morgan.
Morgan opened the door to let them back inside, and Clooney tried to push past him. Morgan gave a, ‘Hey, Clooney - outside,’ and the dog stopped, giving a kind of a growling moan that was a sharp contrast to his barks from before.
‘Aw,’ Emily said, giving the Clooney another rub to the head. ‘Daddy won’t let you inside?’
‘Daddy won’t let him inside because he jumps all over Nana’s sofa-bed,’ Morgan explained.
‘Fair enough,’ Emily conceded. She stepped inside, looking around appreciatively. The house was small, but personable. Photos of his mother and sisters lined the wall, along with one of a handsome man in dress blues who she took to be his father.
He led her through to the kitchen, where Mrs. Morgan sat at the breakfast counter, watching the news on the small TV there. Emily found herself suddenly struck down by a ridiculous bout of nerves. She’d met Prime Ministers, and Princes and a ridiculous amount of Ambassadors, and yet she was not quite able to look Derek Morgan’s mother in the eye.
‘Hi,’ Emily managed, in a soft voice. She could feel her cheeks starting to flush, and wondered if the make-up she’d applied would cover it. She was completely unprepared for the bear hug that was given in response.
‘Nice to see you again, Agent Prentiss.’
‘Please, Mrs. Morgan - Emily.’
‘Only if you call me Fran.’ Emily bit her lip. She’d been brought up to address her elders by their title, rather than their first name. It still threw her, to do otherwise.
‘Of course.’ She passed the bottle of wine to Morgan, who stared at it for a moment, apparently not quite sure what to do with it. There was no wine rack that Emily could see, so he just set it down on the counter.
‘I’m making spaghetti,’ Morgan said, an announcement that led to a brief, but apparently meaningful exchange of looks between him and his mother.
‘Everything okay?’ Emily asked, torn between amusement and concern.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Morgan answered, a little too quickly. Emily raised an eyebrow. Morgan was a good profiler, but he was a terrible liar. Still, he was distracted by the cooking, which meant that Emily found herself being grilled by the woman that was to be her child’s grandmother. She’d seen Morgan get downright scary during interviews, and she wondered if he got that from his father.
No.
He got it from his mother.
It wasn’t an unpleasant interrogation, like some of her own mother’s ended up being, but it was persistent.
‘So where did you grow up?’ The question was so innocent, and yet Emily couldn’t even begin to fathom how she was going to answer it.
‘Um,’ she said finally. ‘Everywhere.’
Fran seemed confused for a moment, so Emily clarified. ‘My parents were - are - Ambassadors. We moved around a lot. I was born in Hungary, and probably lived in at least a half a dozen countries after that.’
‘Any siblings?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I preferred my own company for the most part, anyway. It wasn’t exactly easy to keep in touch with people back then, and it just seemed more convenient to not care about it.’ She bit her lip. She had no idea why she was telling Derek Morgan’s mother all of this. Maybe it was because she wanted to try and prove that she wasn’t taking advantage of her son - that she genuinely cared for him.
‘And how did you join the BAU?’
Emily bit her lip. The truth of course, was “I was brought in by the Section Chief to spy on the team,” but Morgan didn’t know that, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell his mother that. ‘Uh…transfer,’ she said. ‘I worked in the St. Louis Field Office for a while, and then Chicago for a few years, before coming to the BAU.’
The questions then seemed to shift away from Emily herself, and more towards the baby. Unfortunately, they weren’t exactly questions that Emily had had a chance to discuss with Morgan. Thanks to the one-time nature of their sexual encounter, she could guess due date pretty well, but otherwise, they’d have to wait until their appointment on Thursday to find out for sure.
A horrific thought crossed through Emily’s mind, that perhaps she wasn’t really pregnant at all, and the half dozen tests that she bought had been skewed by some hormone imbalance, and the vomiting was from a phantom illness. It might make their situation at work a lot easier, but damned if she didn’t dread it anyway.
The next question, though, made her forget all about that fear.
‘So when’s the wedding?’ Emily’s heart damn near stopped, and she was rendered speechless until she heard, Morgan’s response.
‘Mama, leave her alone.’ He said it with a grin, at which point Emily realized that Fran had been joking. She shook herself. Hell of a joke.
‘I’m sorry,’ Fran said, with a grin that matched her son’s. ‘The look on your face, though…’ There was a long pause. ‘I understand that you aren’t together, but you should consider what you’re going to do after the baby’s born. Raising a child is a lot harder than most people think.’
‘We know, mom,’ Derek said, a little more seriously than his words had been before. ‘We haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet.’
That wasn’t exactly true. They had spoken about it briefly, at which point they’d both come to the conclusion that the best course of action would be to move in together, but she was pretty sure that she and Morgan both were actively trying to forget about the conversation.
After all, moving in together was capital S serious. Moving in together was the kind of thing that couples suggested to each other after having been together for a while. Only one of Emily’s relationships had ever reached that stage, and even then, it had failed spectacularly.
Since then, she hadn’t really tried so much. Of all the possible outcomes in her personal life, this was pretty far down the list. Above “accidentally get married to Hotch after too much alcohol in Vegas” but below “date sleazy British guy, because there’s nothing else going on in life.”
Emily thanked God for small favors then, because if it had been Mick who had gotten her pregnant, she doubted things would have been the same. He was a nice enough guy, if a little arrogant, but she didn’t have the same history with him that she did with Morgan.
Apparently Fran sensed the awkwardness that the question had brought on, because she changed the subject abruptly, and Emily found herself being asked what she did in her spare time. Somehow, it seemed a little more embarrassing to admit her schedule to Morgan’s mother, even if she seemed to take it much better than Morgan himself had. Soon, they were discussing Pride and Prejudice, of all things, while Morgan started to cook.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed a little flustered. Fran followed her gaze and gave a conspiratorial smile. That, in conjunction with the look that she’d given Morgan earlier, probably meant that there had been some discussion over the cooking aspect of the evening.
There was something about the job that wasn’t exactly conducive to cooking regular nutritional meals. Sometimes, when you were coming in at 3am after a week hunting down a sexual sadist, it was just easier to order pizza. Emily had picked up a few things over the years, whether it was as a child in an embassy kitchen, or as a sleep-deprived teenager in need of real food post finals week.
Still, she couldn’t deny that the aroma that soon filled the kitchen was amazing; Italian food always smelt the best.
‘He looks so serious,’ Emily said with a laugh, watching Morgan’s brow furrow as he tasted the sauce. He looked back at her with a somewhat amused grin, which fell away completely, when Fran said:
‘Sweetie, the pasta’s boiling over,’ at which he turned back towards the stove quickly. Emily suppressed a laugh. This was a man who kicked down doors and stared down serial killers without a single iota of fear crossing his face, but the moment he started serving out dinner, Emily noticed the nervousness that she rarely, if ever, saw in the man.
The fact that he was nervous about something like this was almost endearing. And really, there was nothing to be nervous about. The pasta was a little bit overcooked, and the sauce was sweeter than she was used to, but it wasn’t as though he’d made so critical error, like adding half a cup of baking soda by mistake.
‘That was nice,’ she told him with a smile. The look on his face was caught somewhere between surprise and suspicion, as though he wasn’t entirely sure whether she was telling the truth.
‘Who wants ice-cream?’ Fran asked, standing to collect their plates. That was an offer that Emily couldn’t refuse; over the past few weeks, she’d been eating a ridiculous amount of ice-cream. Still, she was somewhat relieved by the fact that her cravings had remained relatively normal. The most unusual one she could claim was peanut butter on pancakes, which was a far cry from pickles with dark chocolate, or any of the cravings that JJ had had.
Morgan hadn’t been lying: he did have plenty of ice-cream. It didn’t quite mesh with her mental schema of Derek Morgan, fitness buff.
True, he did eat a lot of junk while they were on the road - all the team did - but she still couldn’t quite picture him as the kind of guy that would veg out on the sofa with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and the remote control.
Maybe she didn’t know him that well at all.
That was the problem with being profilers; they were so intent on cataloguing each other’s behavior, while still hiding their own. For all she knew, Morgan pole danced on his off days.
Not very likely, her brain said. If nothing else, this was an opportunity to rectify that ignorance.
By the time they’d finished dessert, it was almost 8 o’clock. Not particularly late by most descriptions of the word, but then Emily found herself getting tireder earlier, as the pregnancy progressed. Or maybe it was just psychosomatic.
‘I should get going,’ she said with a yawn. Tomorrow was Monday, which meant work, and she didn’t want to tired herself out before the week had even started.
‘Thank-you for dinner,’ Emily stopped awkwardly in front of Morgan, unsure as to which gesture would be appropriate for the situation. In the end, she settled on a stiff hug, which made the situation even more awkward.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ Emily said, and Fran didn’t correct her, something for which Emily was grateful. She’d much prefer to remember this as their first meeting, rather than the time in Chicago that had brought up such painful memories for Morgan.
‘I’ll walk you out,’ Morgan said decidedly, and Emily didn’t argue.
They stopped at the gate, Clooney sniffing at their hands in earnest, as though they might have had the foresight to save him some food. ‘I…I had a nice time tonight,’ Emily said. ‘Your mother’s a very nice woman.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
‘I can see where you get your charm from.’ She gave a nervous laugh.
Morgan took her hand, his skin warm and soft. Part of her wondered what it would be like to hold that hand every single day.
She walked out the gate, and tried not to look back.
…
Morgan let himself back inside, a little confused. The evening had gone well, he thought - much better than he’d expected - and yet there was still a shadow of doubt that hung over him. Maybe it was the horror she’d expressed at the idea of marriage - it had seemed funny at the time, but now he was wondering whether the thought of marrying him was really that terrifying.
She’s an Ambassador’s daughter, he reminded himself. The kind of girl he never thought he’d be able to get with. She’s too good for you, was another fleeting thought.
She might be from the upper echelons of life, but she’s still the girl that can damn near drink you under the table. She’s still the girl that would sooner drink beer and watch sports than go to a dinner party.
He shook his head.
‘Everything okay?’ his mother asked, as he stepped back inside, careful to make sure that the overenthusiastic Clooney did not follow him.
‘Yeah, I guess…’ he said, very much aware of the morose tone that his words had taken on.
‘Oh, sweetie, if you were really that worried about what she thought, you should have let me cook.’
‘It’s not that,’ he said automatically, but maybe it was, a little. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want this, but at the same time, he was nowhere near ready for it, either.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I am a grown man, Mama.’
‘Which is precisely the reason you should have let me cook. You know, maybe I should have sent you to Harvard, so there was no way you could have come home for dinner every night. Maybe then you would have learned how to boil water.’
‘I can boil water, I just got a little distracted by the two beautiful women talking about me behind my back.’
Fran raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re too old to be sucking up to me like that, Derek.’ There was a long pause. ‘And if you really think that Emily’s beautiful, you should tell her that.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ he argued. He’d called a lot of women beautiful over the years - usually in the course of wooing them at the bar, or on the dance floor - and none of those times, had it ever been more than just words.
This time, it was different, because he meant it.
…
Monday went quickly, all things considered. They were still off rotation, which meant paperwork, and consults, and all those other things that happened in the off hours. Privately, Emily was relieved. If they were called in on a case, then that meant she’d be stuck in some police station doing victimology, because there was no way in hell that Hotch was going to let her out in the field. Hell, there was no way that Morgan was going to let her. She wouldn’t be surprised if he cuffed her to door, just to stop her from leaving.
In spite of that, though, she still found herself exhausted as she unlocked her front door. Something told her that the next few months, she’d be feeling nothing but exhausted. Except maybe nauseous. It’d be worth it, in the end.
That’s what she kept telling herself.
No matter how awkward it was to deal with Hotch’s disapproving looks, with the threat of Strauss hanging over them, with whatever the hell it was that was happening between them…in the end, they would have a child.
The sound of her phone ringing cut through the air; it was the landline, rather than her cell, which meant that it wasn’t one of the team. For some reason, they always called her cell.
It took her a few seconds to recognize the number that Caller ID provided, even though she’d dialed it not two days ago. ‘Hey, mom.’
‘Hello, Emily. Are you at home?’
‘Well I picked up, didn’t I?’ Emily bit on her tongue a moment too late; the words were far too bitter than was warranted. ‘I’m sorry, I just…’
‘Don’t be sorry, Emily - I was very busy Saturday, and I didn’t give you the attention you deserved.’
Emily’s eyebrow rose. All things considered, her mother hadn’t exactly given her that kind of attention in a long time, and it was rare that she actually apologized for it.
‘I was wondering if I could come over for coffee?’
The eyebrow rose even further. “Coffee” had a very specific meaning to it. The Ambassador could have just as easily suggested dinner, but coffee implied that there would be talking, and that was something Emily wasn’t quite sure she could handle. It wasn’t that she was afraid of her mother, just that the distance between them had become so great over the years that she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d say.
What she did say was, ‘That sounds nice,’ which wasn’t exactly true, and she was pretty sure they both knew it.
She hung up the phone, and gave her condo a cursory glance-over, checking that nothing was out of place. After a beat, she decided that she didn’t particularly care if anything was out of place. That was the kind of thing that hadn’t really mattered in a long time. She wondered why it had taken her so long to realize it.
Maybe it was those long forgotten memories that had her wringing her hands right up until the moment her mother knocked on the door.
It was only a couple of months since they’d last seen each other - April seemed to ring a bell - and yet the hug that Elizabeth Prentiss delivered as soon as the door opened suggested that it could have been years.
‘Mom…’ Emily started. She bit her lip, and just cherished that rare feeling of her mother’s arms around her. The Ambassador pulled away, a little stiffly.
‘Let me see you.’ She looked Emily up and down, but it wasn’t that critical kind of look that Emily was used to. ‘How far along?’
‘Um…six weeks, give or take,’ Emily said, suppressing the frown that was brewing. This was a side of her mother that she’d never really seen before, but then, all things considered, she’d never really had the opportunity to see it. Maybe, all those years ago, if things had gone differently…
Still, while she sometimes wondered what life would have been like if she’d never had the abortion, she didn’t regret it. Not in that way. She might have loved that child, but there was no way she could have been a proper mother to it. And maybe, she still felt a little guilty for not feeling that regret.
The unasked question hung heavy in the air. Obviously, the child wasn’t the result of an immaculate conception.
‘You remember my colleague,’ she started, and those words were enough for the Ambassador to arch a neatly plucked eyebrow. ‘Derek Morgan,’ Emily finished, and the eyebrow rose further. She vaguely wondered whether Hotch or Rossi or even Reid would have been seen as a more acceptable suitor.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said smoothly, and there was no lie in her voice. After all, diplomats relied on remembering names and faces and…usefulness.
‘He’s the father,’ Emily said bluntly; there was no amount of cushioning that would salvage the situation. ‘Why don’t I make that coffee,’ she suggested; the kitchen wouldn’t be much of an escape, but it was better than standing there awkwardly. In lieu of anything else, Emily said, pulling mugs down from the cupboard, ‘My first sonogram’s on Thursday.’
‘Have you discussed…arrangements?’ Emily almost rolled her eyes. The question wasn’t an unexpected one, but she was still a little resentful that it had been asked without Morgan there to back her up. Maybe it was better that way - after all, he didn’t know Elizabeth Prentiss the way Emily did.
‘Not yet,’ Emily said, adding, before the Ambassador could say anything, ‘We’re taking things slowly.’ It wasn’t the best word choice, considering that “taking things slowly” didn’t exactly fit well with “impregnation during one night stand.”
Emily didn’t need to look to know that her mother’s lips were pursed - that she was holding back any criticism with every fiber of her being. After all, even in this day and age, children with out of wedlock pregnancies weren’t exactly stellar for any politician’s career, even if the child did happen to be almost forty.
‘Have you told your father yet?’
Emily stopped. She’d been hoping to avoid that particular topic, considering the relationship that she had with her father could be considered even worse than the one that she had with her mother. It wasn’t that he was a bad person, or even a bad father - he’d just never really been around a lot. Considering the turbulences of her childhood, and the absences of her mother, that was really saying something.
She shook her head. ‘To be honest, I don’t even know where he is right now.’
‘I’ll make sure he’s here when we go to dinner this weekend,’ Emily’s mother assured her, and Emily blinked.
‘Dinner?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth said smoothly. ‘You don’t think I’ll let you get away with keeping the father of your child in the dark, do you? I’d like to talk to him.’
Emily had the sudden mental image of Derek handcuffed to a chair in a darkened interrogation room, gaunt and terrified.
‘He’s not harboring state secrets, mother,’ Emily said, exasperated.
‘No, but he is one of my daughter’s suitors, which is arguably a far worse crime.’ While there was some tone of amusement in her mother’s voice, Emily still wasn’t quite sure whether to accept the situation for what it was, or pack a bag and run away to Egypt.
Running away from problems never makes them easier, said a voice inside her head. Especially, she thought, especially considering the fact that there was a long list of people ready to drag her home before she even made it to the airport.
‘Saturday night,’ Elizabeth instructed, in a voice that made grown men shiver in fear. ‘Eight o’clock.’
She almost pitied Derek.