Emily rolled over in bed and was met with Rachel's smiling face. "Hi Mommy." She whispered. The little girl was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the first Harry Potter book in her lap.
"Hey sweetie, what are you doing up so early?" Emily whispered back, not wanting to wake JJ before seven.
Rachel shrugged. "I woke up."
Emily smiled and tucked her arms under her head. "And came in here to read in the dark?"
"I have a book light Spence gave me." Rachel shivered and Emily pulled open the covers. Rachel grinned and crawled up into the bed, tucking herself into Emily.
"Jezz you're toes are cold." Emily whispered, giving her a kiss. Rachel giggled and tickled Emily's legs with them again causing the brunette to suppress a squeal. "If you wake up your mother I will make you deal with her." Emily warned. Rachel smiled and wrapped her arms around Emily's neck, laying still. She knew better than to wake JJ up anytime before nine. The two stayed quiet for a few minutes, Emily thought Rachel must have fallen back asleep and was very close to doing so herself when Rachel softly whispered.
"Mommy?"
"Hum?" Emily didn't open her eyes.
"Did you and Momma talk about me seeing Frankie yet?" She asked nervously.
Emily shifted a little and opened her eyes. Rachel's face was inches from her own and she was bitting her lower lip nervously. Emily sighed, wishing that JJ were awake so she didn't have to deal with this particular subject alone. Truthfully, it was all they had been talking about for the last few days, but they had yet to really reach a conclusion. Neither woman wanted that man anywhere near their child ever again, but it seemed important to Rachel and they didn't want to just say no.
"Can you tell me why you want to talk to him?" Emily asked.
Rachel dropped her gaze to Emily's chin and began twirling her hair in her little fingers, rather than look her mother in the eye. "I need to tell him some stuff." She said vaguely.
"Can you be anymore specific, or tell me why you need to tell him something?" Emily sighed in frustration. "We just...your mother and I want to understand why you need to talk to him. Is it something you don't want to ask us?"
"No, I don't need to ask him anything this time. I just..." Rachel grew frustrated and wasn't sure how to get the words out to explain her need properly. Her frustration grew to anger and she lashed out. "He's my dad and if I want to talk to him then you should just let me!" She yelled pushing herself away from Emily and trying to crawl out of the bed. Emily bumped into JJ who had begun waking up at the sound of Rachel yelling.
"What's going on?" JJ asked rubbing her eyes.
Emily ignored her, trying to reach out and grab Rachel but the little girl was quick and moved out of reach. "I want to talk to my dad and you can't stop me. I'll go by myself again if you won't take me." Rachel threatened as she crossed her arms and stamped out of the room, leaving a very shocked Emily and an extremely confused JJ behind her.
"Okay...I repeat, what is going on?" JJ asked, sitting up and leaning against the headboard.
"She wants to see Frankie, and as much as I don't want to...judging from her little meltdown, I think we should take her."
JJ pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. She hated it, but she agreed with her wife. "Fine, but she can't yell at us like that."
"I agree. Which is why I'm going to go find her, make coffee and put her in time out." Emily leaned over and kissed JJ then went off to find Rachel. JJ sighed and slumped back down into the bed, flinging the covers over her head with a groan. Today was not starting out well, and it was only 7:08 in the morning.
"Rachel?" Emily called. The little girl hadn't been in her room, or the upstairs bathroom. Emily headed downstairs to continue her search. She turned around the corner and sighed. "Hey." She said. Rachel was standing on a stool leaning over the island counter and making coffee. Grinds were all around the countertop and the floor, but she was successful.
"I'm sorry I yelled." Rachel said immediately. She began sweeping the grinds together trying to clean them up quickly. Emily snatched the garbage bag and held it against the counter for Rachel.
"That's good." Emily said gently. "But you're still sitting in time out for five minutes."
"Mommy!" Rachel whined. "But I apologized! And I really mean it, and I made you coffee!"
Emily grinned and lifted Rachel down, giving her bottom a light swat to get her moving. "Which is very good and I thank you, but you can't yell at us like that, we're your parents and its disrespectful. You can't threaten to leave and go off to visit a jail by yourself. You have to talk to us, not yell and demand. So, five minutes, go."
Rachel glared at her mother with crossed arms, but walked over and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs. It had become the designated time out spot. Rachel hated this step, she hated it a lot. She had apologized! Emily ignored her, as she always did when Rachel was in time out and began making breakfast. Rachel watched as she sipped her coffee and smiled a little to herself. Annoyed at being in time out or not, Rachel beamed seeing that she had made the coffee right. Five minutes seemed to drag on and on and on. Rachel shifted her position about fifty times. By the time Emily finally came over to her she was laying upside down.
"Hello." Emily said amused.
Rachel quickly flipped back around and sat up straight, clasping her hands in her lap. "Hello." She said shyly. She was aware that time out meant sitting still and not talking. Emily bent down to Rachel's level and gave her a soft smile, but didn't say anything. Rachel pursed her lips and twiddled her thumbs praying for Emily to say something. "I already apologized." Rachel reminded her after a few painful moments of silence.
"Anything to add?" Emily asked with a small smirk.
"Yelling is disrespectful, and demanding things only gets me in time out and I love you?" Rachel asked quickly.
Emily broke into a grin. "Much better, would you like breakfast?" Emily asked. Rachel wrapped her arms around Emily's neck and slipped into her embrace with a smile. Emily lifted her up off the steps and gave her a hug as JJ walked downstairs, dressed and hair wet. "Do you have anything to say to her?" Emily asked.
Rachel hid behind Emily and pressed her face into her side shyly. Being in time out embarrassed her and she hated having them angry with her. "I'm sorry I yelled and was rude." Rachel whispered. Emily rolled her eyes and passed Rachel over to the blonde who secured Rachel on her hip. She was still relatively tiny and light for an eight year old. Rachel kissed her mother's cheek in hopes that being sweet would make them forget she had yelled at them. "Good morning Momma." She whispered.
JJ smiled, seeing right through Rachel's tactic. With a look to Emily she sighed and flipped Rachel upside down before pulling her back up and ticking her sides a little. Rachel squealed with delight. "Good morning to you too Monkey, how was time out?"
"Not pleasant but I suffered through it."
JJ snorted. "Where did you get that from?" She placed Rachel onto a stool and happily accepted the coffee mug from Emily.
Rachel shrugged and took a bite of her waffle. "Tv." She said with her mouth full. JJ frowned at her and she ducked her head and chewed her food throughly before speaking again.
JJ looked across the table to Emily and met her wife's eyes. Emily nodded and silently, they agreed. "Rach, despite the fact that we're not exactly happy with how you asked us," JJ let out a sigh, "we will take you to see Frankie."
"Really?" Rachel asked, shocked.
Emily nodded. "Under a few conditions."
"We will be with you the entire time." JJ said firmly. "And if either of us feels that the situation is not something we're comfortable with, we will be leaving, no exceptions."
"You mean if I freak out and cry?" Rachel asked calmly. JJ frowned at her. "I won't." Rachel insisted. With that Rachel hopped down from the stool and ran upstairs to go get dressed.
"Ugh, this is really gonna suck." Emily groaned and dropped her head into her hands.
Rachel gripped her mothers hands tightly as they made their way down the dark hall. She would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous, but she refused to show it, knowing Emily and JJ would make her leave. This was important and she was very determined to see it through. She walked over to the seat, took the telephone and put it to her ear, watching as Frankie sullenly flopped down across the glass. Emily and JJ hovered right above her and Rachel felt like she couldn't breathe. They were too close, she didn't want them near Frankie. It tainted them somehow. "Can you guys wait over there?" She asked, pointing to the wall a few feet away.
"Rachel, we agreed..." JJ began
"Just over there, you can still see me and hear me." Rachel pleaded.
Emily licked her lips and sighed, glaring at Frankie, then placing her hand on JJ's elbow and tried to lead her away. JJ held her ground, bent down and took the phone from Rachel. "You will listen to her and if I see one tear, or a single tremble of her lip I will make you wish you were never born." She said fiercely before handing the phone back to Rachel and walking over to the wall.
Emily looked a little shocked but gave Frankie her best glare and followed her wife. "Impressive." She whispered.
"I'm freaking out." JJ hissed.
"Here." Emily pulled a small bag of cheetos out of her pocket with a smirk.
"You're mean." JJ pouted.
"You know you want them so just crunch quietly and stew."
With a glare JJ wrenched the bag from Emily's hands and ripped the bag open. "Don't bite your nails." She chastised without looking over at her wife. With a glare of her own, Emily pulled her hand away from her face and crossed her arms.
"This sucks." Emily whispered.
"I concur."
Emily made a face at JJ. "You concur? When did you start saying that?"
"Rachel learned the word, she's been saying it, its stuck in my head, shut up I can't hear."
"You get mean when you're nervous."
"I will pinch you."
Rachel couldn't hear her mothers squabbling. She had her eyes locked on Frankie. She had been rehearsing what she wanted to say to him for almost an entire month. She hadn't told her mothers that she wanted to talk to him until she was sure of what she needed to say. "Hi." She began softly. Frankie grunted in response. Rachel took a deep breath. "I'm eight now."
"Congratulations." Frankie said with disinterest.
"Emily and JJ adopted me. My last name's Prentiss now. I don't belong to you anymore, I belong to them."
"Kid, I'm actually aware of this, the lawyer sent me a letter."
"Well, I wanted to tell you. I wanted to make sure you knew that I'm not yours. And...and I wanted to thank you."
Frankie looked up, shocked at her words. Behind her, JJ froze, a cheeto hovering just by her mouth and Emily began gnawing at her thumb.
"Thank me?" He asked.
Rachel nodded. "Yes. You taught me how to dance, I'm really good, my dance teacher – who is a lot nicer than you – says that if I work hard I could maybe be a professional dancer. I love dance now, you didn't ruin it for me."
Frankie still looked confused and Emily and JJ both looked like they wanted to throw up, or throw something, preferably at Frankie's head.
"And..." Rachel bit her lower lip, growing more nervous, but pressing on. This was important to her. "And...if you hadn't been so mean to me, Em...Mommy and Momma wouldn't have ever found me. You're a really bad person, but you didn't turn me into one. I'm good...well most of the time sometimes I get put in time out, but I don't hurt people like you and I never will."
JJ crushed her cheeto bag and Emily's thumb began to bleed a little. Frankie looked uncomfortable and Rachel was only getting started.
"I have a lot of people who love me. I have a best friend named Jack and two other friends named Tommy and Kaley. I have an aunt who dresses me up like a doll and pinches my cheeks and is always super happy to see me. I have a grandmother who is an Ambassador. She's really important and smart and rich and is going to take me to Paris. I have grandparents who come stay with me when Mommy and Momma go away for work and Grams makes cookies and Grandpa is teaching me how to ride a bike."
Emily had clutched JJ's hand and was gripping it tightly, both women had tears in their eyes. Both had long abandoned their nails and cheetos.
"I have four uncles." Rachel said proudly. "Which is way better than one dad. Mr Dave has a big huge house and he doesn't care if I run around and break things in it. Morgan is teaching me how to box and lets me watch zombie movies and I can do pull ups on his arm. Mr Hotch pretends to be all tough but he will actually play Doctor Who with you and laugh when no grown ups are around; and Spence will tell me anything I want to know. He's my favorite person, besides Mommy and Momma."
Rachel turned around and smiled at her mothers, both of them looked ready to fall apart.
"They love me." Rachel smiled, oblivious to Frankie's annoyance, or she simply didn't care. Frankie no longer mattered to her. She didn't need his validation, she didn't need anything from him. "They tell me all the time, Mommy taught me how to read and Momma is teaching me how to cook and how to play soccer and Mommy is going to teach me how to swim. I moved up a grade, and I'm smart. I have a family and its because you never acted like my family. So, I wanted to thank you and tell you that I forgive you."
Frankie looked ready to throw up and gripped the phone tightly causing his knuckles to whiten.
"I'm not afraid of you anymore." Rachel placed the telephone into its hook and stood up without giving Frankie a single glance. She finally felt free of him once and for all, his reaction didn't matter. Rachel had come and said what she wanted to say and she felt like a weight had been lifted. In a way, this meant more than trusting Emily and JJ, than her nightmares stopping, it meant more than the adoption, than not needing to talk to Dr Yang, that she hadn't wet the bed in months or didn't panic when Emily and JJ left for a case; Rachel had done this all on her own and finally, she felt like a normal kid. She skipped to her completely overwhelmed mothers and beamed up at them. "I'm ready to go now."
JJ bent down and picked Rachel up, clinging to her tightly and walked down the hall unable to say a word. Emily shot a glance back at an astonished Frankie, then quickly followed them, taking the hand JJ held out for her. JJ was visibly crying as they walked through the parking lot and Emily moved to take Rachel from her as she began to shake but JJ shook her head and clung tighter. "Momma, you're squeezing me too tight!" Rachel protested.
"I'm sorry baby." JJ said, loosening her grip and kissing Rachel all over her face.
"Eww, Momma!"
"Oh, just let her hug you." Emily ordered as she wrapped her arms around them both.
"You are both being really weird." Rachel complained, but she let them both hug and kiss her and continue to cry.
"Because we're proud of you." Emily said.
"So proud." JJ added.
"And we love you." Emily said, the tears flowing down her face.
"So much!"
Rachel sighed. "You're embarrassing me, we're in public."
Emily and JJ looked at each other then burst out laughing. "She's embarrassed by us now, great." Emily said sarcastically.