Title: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. Part VII
Author:xiotonks 
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Emily/JJ, Emily/OFC
Rating: PG - 13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. It makes me cry at night...
Summary: And suddenly, she has no one left to talk to...
AN: HUGE thanks tokassandra_luem for doing her beta thing and putting up with my sometimes rather stupid mistakes.
AN2: I started this while I was in Taizé this summer. It probably shows

VII.

 

All Emily has ever wanted, has been to believe. When she was 5 she wanted to believe that she was the most important thing in her mother’s life. Instead her mother forgot to even smile at her the morning of her fifth birthday, leaving a ridiculously expensive gift in Emily’s room two days later in what was clearly an admission of guilt. When she was seven, she wanted to believe in God. Not just any God but the one in which the other girls at her school believed. When she was 13, and for the first time in her life had fallen in love, she wanted to believe that it was perfectly normal to get butterflies in her stomach while being hugged by another girl. 25 years later, all she wanted to believe was that with Jennifer everything would be different. That even if she didn’t love Emily back, the young blonde wouldn’t break her heart. Instead the love of her life, the one woman, has not only broken her heart, but torn it to pieces, before throwing it back at her, effectively killing everything that made Emily Prentiss a strong and precious person.
Emily should have known that she wouldn’t be able to hide all this from her mother. As well as she should have known that her mother would of course notice that the vehicle in the third garage stall from the left was a luxurious black Lexus F Performance limousine and not a tiny little BMW. Emily hasn’t only studied behavior for the better part of her life, she has studied Ambassador Prentiss for an even bigger part of it. And because she has, she doesn’t recognize the emotion in her mother’s gaze for what it is. Compassion. Elizabeth Prentiss and compassion is something Emily can’t quite bring into syntactical accord.
“Where did you go last night?” the Ambassador asks her daughter and Emily just knows that somewhere inside the question is a hidden accusation.
“It’s none of your business, mother” Emily replies wearily because she doesn’t want to play these games anymore.
For the first time in her life Emily sees the Ambassador at a loss for words. What surprises her, though, is that it makes her even more tired.
Emily knows that her mother knows how to read people – Emily’s not the only one who’s made her money with analyzing behavior. The younger Prentiss just chose to use the advantage that growing up as a career politician’s daughter has given her in a different way. But not only has Emily studied her mother, for the last 39 years her mother has studied Emily. She comes to think now that maybe that’s what’s their problem. They know each other too well. They know each other so well that they don’t expect surprises. And what the Ambassador – the woman who  Emily hasn’t called “mom” since she first said it as a toddler – does after what could have been hours or merely seconds of silence is nothing short but a shock for Emily. But after only a heartbeat of hesitation she starts clinging to her mother’s arms like they’re the only thing to keep her from drowning, like her mother is the only thing she’s left in this world. And it strikes her that that’s exactly how it is.