Jack looked very at home in Penelope’s office, his short legs dangling over the edge of the chair. Emily smiled as she leaned against the doorway. Penelope was working on something else on three other screens while Jack watched his movie. She knocked gently and both occupants of the room turned to look. Emily smiled as Jack hopped down off his chair to come hug her leg.
“You ready for the Christmas party?” she asked tugging playfully on the Santa hat he was still wearing.
The little head nodded enthusiastically. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s still in his meeting.” And if Aaron was still in his meeting when the adult party started, she was going to be more than angry. Sure, the FBI enjoyed their business, but Christmas was a time for fun too.
“Oh,” Jack said, looking upset. “But I can’t go by myself.”
“No, no you can’t,” Emily agreed. “What do you think if I take you down to the children’s party?”
For six years old, Jack had a pretty thorough understanding of what his Daddy’s job meant. He spent more time with Mommy because Daddy worked a lot, but Jack also knew that didn’t mean Daddy loved him any less. They’d spent the previous weekend at the park and Daddy had even taken him to see the dinosaurs. So he smiled up at her. “Okay.”
Emily hoisted Jack into her arms. It was just easier to carry him sometimes than it was to slow her pace so he wasn’t running to keep up. “Did you say thank you to Penelope?”
Jack turned to the blond techie. “Thank you Miss Penny.”
Penelope grinned shaking her head. “No ‘miss’,” she scolded him playfully. “Does he do that to you?”
The latter question was directed at Emily and she grinned as she nodded. “Since the day I met him. No matter what I do I can’t get him to drop the ‘miss’. And I’ve tried pretty much everything.”
Penelope shook her head. “It’s endearing, but really! I’m not old enough to be a ‘miss’.”
“Did you have fun?” Emily asked Jack.
The boy was clutching one of Penelope’s figurines in his hands. He started nodding frantically. “Miss Penny showed me funny pictures. There’s even one of Daddy and Mommy!”
Emily winced. “The yearbook pictures?”
“I’m just trying to show him what true genius looks like,” Penelope defended innocently.
“Didn’t we promise to bury those pictures?”
“Peaches, just be glad I kept the one of our resident hottie in chaps under wraps.”
“And scar the six-year-old? I’m never leaving him with you again.”
Penelope stuck out her tongue.
“Miss Penny! You’re not supposed to stick your tongue out at people!” Jack scolded even as he burst into laughter.
“Emily and I are the only ones allowed to stick our tongues out and we’re only allowed to stick them out at each other,” Penelope explained logically. “No one else can stick their tongue out at anybody.”
Jack seemed to accept that. He waved at Penelope over Emily’s shoulder as she carried him out of the room.
Jack looked around at the children scattered about the many stations of the room and clung tighter to Miss Emily’s neck. He didn’t do well in large crowds of people he didn’t know. There were too many strangers in the room, even if most of them were kids like him and he was very, very nervous. Miss Emily was warm safety.
“Agent Prentiss! I didn’t know you had a son.”
Jack hid his head in Miss Emily’s neck as a woman came up to greet them. He felt Miss Emily shift her hold on him and clung tighter.
“I don’t,” he heard, well, felt and heard, Miss Emily say. “This is Jack Hotchner.”
Jack peeked out from under his arm to find a redheaded woman.
“Well aren’t you adorable! I’m Vicky.”
That didn’t help, and it certainly didn’t make him want to leave the safety of Miss Emily any time soon.
“Why don’t you come make a Christmas card? I see you already have a Santa hat,” Miss Vicky suggested.
Jack felt another shift, then his feet touched the ground. He shifted his grip to Miss Emily’s pant leg and grasped it in his fist. He heard Miss Emily sigh, then she crouched down to his level. “What’s wrong, Buddy?”
Jack leaned against her and looked down, chewing on his lip. Miss Emily ran a hand through his hair. He loved it when she did that.
“There’s other things to do,” Miss Vicky suggested. “You could make an ornament or decorate a gingerbread man.”
“I don’t like gingerbread,” Jack said quietly.
“But you like decorating the tree,” Miss Emily pointed out. “I know you and Daddy decorated a really nice one last weekend.”
Oh, he’d forgotten about that. He and Daddy had gone tree hunting and then decorated it. It was his first real tree. Mommy never liked how the needles always fell on the floor. He liked how Daddy’s tree didn’t match like Mommy’s did. Mommy’s tree was pretty, but Daddy’s tree meant more. Daddy had told him stories about almost every ornament they put on the tree.
“I have an idea,” Miss Emily said, a smile on her face. “Why don’t you make a new ornament for your tree? Then you’ll have your own special thing to hang on it every year.”
He really liked that idea. But he didn’t like the idea of being left alone in the room and he knew Miss Emily had to go back to her desk and then to the grown-ups party. Which would mean he’d be left all alone with kids he didn’t know. He felt Miss Emily kiss the side of his head.
“We’re not going to be far and we’re not going to leave you here,” she said softly. “Daddy’s going to come and get you in about two hours.”
“How long is that?” Jack asked. He’d only just learned to tell time.
“At seven o’clock,” Miss Emily answered. “Which is…?”
“When the big hand’s at the 12 and the little hand’s at the 7,” Jack responded proudly. He laughed when Miss Emily tickled his belly.
“That’s right! So you go make a decoration, ice a gingerbread man for me, and before you realize it, Daddy will be here to get you.”
That actually sounded kind of okay. “Okay,” he agreed. He took Miss Vicky’s outstretched hand and let her lead him to a table filled with glitter, glue and construction paper.
Aaron caught up to Emily when the party was already in full swing. She was chatting away with a woman from cyber crimes, her hands around a cup. Aaron smiled at the woman and politely excused them both. “Jack?”
“Safely decorating something,” she answered. “You could have told me you were bringing him in.”
“It was kind of a last minute,” he admitted. “I didn’t see the point of leaving him with Mildred and I knew Haley wouldn’t want to bring him out here…”
“He spent most of his afternoon with Garcia and her computers. Which reminds me, I take no responsibility for what pictures he may have seen while he was there. Garcia said something about yearbook pictures.”
Aaron made a mental note to have a discussion with the analyst about what kind of things to show his son. “Thank you for dropping him off.”
“Sometimes I forget Jack can be so shy,” she said shaking her head affectionately.
Aaron smiled as JJ approached. “He’s not good with lots of strangers.”
“Glad they let you out of prison to join us,” JJ greeted. She was much more laid back when work wasn’t involved, even with their boss. It came with the family oriented ways of the team.
“Me too.” For his part, Aaron enjoyed seeing his team at ease. They worked so hard on a daily basis that he was always looking and hoping to find ways to alleviate some of the stress without really looking like he was doing it. Luckily, there was often a statutory holiday that meant they all go the day off.
“Jack is a fantastic kid,” JJ complimented. “He poked his head out of your office this afternoon.”
Aaron smiled, as he always did when talking about his son. The boy was his pride and joy and anyone who knew him knew that. “Thanks JJ.”
JJ hadn’t really come over for a chat. She’d seen Hotch pull Emily away and, with top brass floating around, worried about the two of them talking together. Everyone in the office saw Hotch as stoic and untouchable. Even if the team knew otherwise, it wouldn’t do any good to have the two of them chatting alone in a corner. She didn’t want the careless action to put any member of the team in the hot seat with Strauss.
“Hey Hotch! Graham and I are having a debate here. The case you had with the Indian symbols…”
“Native American, Joe,” Aaron corrected as he made his way over.
JJ was glad for the moment with Emily. “You guys might want to be careful.”
“I know,” Emily sighed. She’d been a little apprehensive when Aaron had pulled her out of her conversation, but relaxed a bit when he’d started asking about Jack. That was a logical thing other agents didn’t need to start spreading around Quantico. Her mind had been so focused on how relieved she was that he wasn’t asking about Jack in front of another agent that the way they looked talking quietly together had completely slipped her mind. “Thanks.”
JJ smiled. “Just protecting our own.”
Emily chuckled. “We do that well,” she agreed.
The blond moved to stand beside her friend, taking in the room. “I like Christmas.”
Emily grinned, watching the teams and departments mingle together. She liked the opportunity. She didn’t have many friends within the Quantico Bureau, but she enjoyed seeing so many other people meeting up with friends from other places. Derek was having an animated discussion with people she recognized from the bomb squad. Penelope looked perfectly at home with a Reid-look-alike, probably debating the finer points of a good operating system. She turned to JJ when she heard the woman sigh.
“I’m off to rescue Spence,” she said, affection shining in her voice.
Emily raised an eyebrow, her insinuation obvious. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”
“Cute,” JJ responded glaring in mock anger.
Emily chuckled as the other woman walked off. Someday, those two would get up the courage to just get it done and over with. Maybe it would simply release sexual tension and they’d never have to deal with it again, maybe it would result in the greatest thing since sliced bread, either way, Emily was sure both of her peers would come out all the better for it.
“Who in their right minds is going to leave a beautiful woman like you all by herself?”
Seriously? Nevertheless, Emily turned to look at the speaker. She had to admit, no recognition flashed across her brain, but that really didn’t surprise her.
“Greg Markus, white-collar.”
Ew, ew, ,and holy ew. She’d almost shot Aaron when she’d discovered Haley had been on the brink of convincing him to transfer to that unit. Nevertheless, she pasted on a smile and shook the offered hand. “Emily Prentiss.”
“No department?”
“BAU.”
Markus whistled. “Impressive.”
Most people Emily knew didn’t really think so, but then again, most of them preferred the empty-headed trophy wife to her always analytical mind. “I get by.”
“And apparently not on looks alone. BAU isn’t for just anybody.”
Her smile was society polite. “It’s always a challenge.”
“Matthew’s team?”
Emily resisted the urge to arch an eyebrow when he named the unit chief of D-Team. Apparently he thought she was a spring chicken. Or maybe simply not up to A-Team snuff. It was common knowledge that the units were designated by their successes. “Hotchner’s.” Part of her hoped that was intimidating enough to make him back off.
Apparently he’d already consumed one too many eggnogs. “Gorgeous and brilliant.”
The compliments didn’t faze her. In fact, his drunken attention worried her.
“Hey Em!”
God bless Derek Morgan.
“C’mere a sec. We’ve got an international question for you.”
She’d answer his most mundane question if it meant getting her out of the situation. There was a reason she’d threatened the organized crime department earlier that week. Much to her dismay, even with a smile and soft excuse me, Markus followed her. Emily rolled her eyes at Derek apologetically before holding up a finger indicating to him to hang on a second. Then she turned to Markus. “Look, Agent Markus…”
He leaned down and kissed her.