Her Mother's Daughter - Hotchniss

chapter two: old fashioned

"Once upon a thrill, from a kiss to a swill / We were swallowin' the nights like we had nine lives"

-

The night Emily got home from South Carolina, she found Bridget asleep on the couch, just wiped out. She kissed Bridget on the forehead and went up into bed.

"You're certainly your mother's daughter," Rossi had said upon meeting Bridget for the first time. She was eleven or twelve, very calculated but with her mother's warm, dark eyes that would frost over at the first sign of trouble.

"Are we really that alike, sir?" Rossi chuckled and turned to Emily, whose hand was on her daughter's shoulder. Emily smiled, and Rossi looked down at Bridget.

"Oh, more than you could possibly fathom."

Bridget woke up in the middle of the night and headed into bed, not knowing her mom had come home. She woke up to her alarm at 6 and shut it off with a sigh. It was February vacation, why couldn't she have remembered to turn off her alarm?

She got downstairs and Emily was drinking coffee and doing paperwork. "Morning, honey,"

"Morning," Bridget grumbled back, rubbing her eyes. "When'd you get back?"

"Last night. You were asleep,"

"Hmm." Bridget poured herself a cup of coffee and laid on the couch. "Did you get any sleep?" she laughed.

"Some. Just glad to be home. I'm sorry I missed your birthday, honey." Bridget sipped her coffee and shook her head.

"No, it's fine. There'll be others." Emily let the papers fall closed. "Mom, it's really okay. I don't care,"

"We can go out to dinner tonight, if you still want to?"

"Yeah, that's good." Bridget nodded and Emily smiled. She was about to continue her paperwork when she 'realized' something.

"Hey, can I see those photos? I just wanna see, I barely remember them." Bridget got up and grabbed them from her room. She handed them to Emily, who pretended to look through all of them before getting to the one of her and Hotch. "Huh,"

"What?"

"Oh, I just...I do remember this one, a little bit,"

"You do? What was the context? Because I've been wondering that for days," Bridget chuckled, curling up on the couch. Emily smiled.

"He was working security for Grandma in 1994, right before I went to Yale. We met at a bar by chance one night. Grandma wanted one last picture before I left so I convinced him to take it with me." Bridget grinned.

"Nice." She bit her lip; she couldn't ask. Emily looked at her.

"You okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, why?"

"Nothing, you just looked..." Emily trailed off and Bridget shrugged. "Uh, Bridge...about what you asked me a couple weeks ago..." Bridget raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you, uh, a relationship with him when you were younger. I know there's nothing I can do about that now, but, uh..."

"Mom, are you okay?" Emily fiddled with her watch and showed her kid a sad smile.

"Yeah. I'm fine, honey." She tousled Bridget's dark hair, putting a smile on Bridget's face.

"We don't have to talk about it right now if you don't want." Emily swallowed and shook her head. Her heart swelled with pride at how considerate her child was.

"No, no, I want...I want you to know, you deserve to." Now or never.

-

Before she started the car to go to work later that morning, Emily texted Hotch. The car was freezing, but she was preoccupied with her daughter.

[emily prentiss] Morning. Can we meet in your office once I get there?

[aaron hotchner] Of course. Is this about Bridget?

[emily prentiss] Yeah, I'll let you know more when I see you

Emily was zoning out, driving on her brain's autopilot. She had succeeded in luring Bridget into asking about her father; for months, she had been seeing Hotch again, the first time in almost seventeen years. Absolutely nobody in the world knew about their past or present relations — except Bridget, now. If Bridget knew the truth about Aaron being her father, it would perhaps ease the transition when Emily decided to tell her about their new relationship.

Emily put her bag down at her desk, briefly thanked god she was the first one there other than Hotch and Rossi, each of whom was in his respective office, and went in to see Hotch. He looked out and shut the blinds of his office.

"Good morning," said Hotch as formal as he could.

"Morning," Emily replied just as formally. They both dropped the facade. "I told her this morning. Well, she kind of figured it out, from my reaction to the picture of us,"

"And how'd she take it?"

"Pretty well, considering the nature of..." She trailed off, and he nodded, looking down briefly.

"Yes. Right. What did she say?" Emily broke into a big smile to think of her daughter's reaction.

"I told her that she didn't have to do anything she didn't want in terms of a relationship, and I told her...that you know, but only for a few months, I didn't want her thinking you just left her. I didn't tell you, if there's someone to blame, it's me. She said that she wants something, but she wants to wrap her head around it first. And to give her some time." Hotch smiled and nodded. "Oh, she also added that she didn't blame me, she understands why I did it. She's really mature. Too mature, sometimes, I think." He noticed the pride, laced with sadness, in her face. "My daughter is— our daughter— is such a compassionate, loving girl. You know I love you to death, Aaron, but if you break her little heart—"

"Emily, I would never dream of it,"

"—so help you God." Emily failed to hold her tears back. "She's...Rossi's always thought she acts like me," she chuckled, wiping her tears away on the sleeve of her sweater. Hotch looked down and grinned.

"She does. From the limited interaction I've had, and what you've told me about her over the past five years, it sounds like you've done a damn good job being her mother." Emily tried to smile at him.

"My god, I don't know what I did so right with her. When I was her age, I was just the worst," she laughed. "I got so lucky. She's always been so easy, and mild." Emily took a deep breath and sighed, looking around to calm herself down.

"It's not luck. You raised her to be this way. You're a good mother, Emily."