The Usual Rules

Chapter 25

Emily woke up as something hard slammed into her chest. "Ummgh." She muttered sharply. Opening her eyes, she caught sight of brown curly hair and felt a smile creep onto her face. Emily tried to stay still but was a little uncomfortable. Rachel had practically climbed all the way on top of Emily and was whimpering. Emily recognized one of her nightmares when she saw one. The profiler gently pulled her arm out from under JJ and brushed Rachel's hair out of her face slowly. "Hey Monkey...Rach...? Sweetie, come on wake up. You're okay. Rach, honey, wake up, I got you." Emily murmured softly until Rachel finally stopped whimpering and opened her eyes. Emily grinned down at the face looking up at her. "Good morning." She said happily. She whipped the few tears that had fallen onto Rachel's face off and kissed her nose. "Do you want to tell me about it?" She asked. Rachel shook her head and buried her face into Emily's chest, clutching her shirt and refusing to talk to her. "Okay, that's fine, but if you do let me know okay?" Rachel nodded and hugged Emily tighter without looking up.

The two of them stayed where they were, snuggling while JJ slept next to them. After a few moments, Emily thought Rachel might have fallen back asleep, but she spoke up. "Mly?" She whispered sleepily. The brunette woman smiled.

"Yes?"

"Was the social worker man telling the truth?" She asked in a tiny voice.

"About us adopting you?" Emily asked. Rachel nodded but quickly hid her face again, unable to look at Emily while she answered. "Yes. We've told you since you moved in that's what we want, if you want it too, it will be official next week."

"How does it work?" Rachel asked, looking up at Emily.

The profiler smiled, running her fingers through Rachel's hair while she talked. "Well, basically when parents have children they have legal rights as well as biological. Do you remember what biological means?"

"Like we share DNA?"

"Right." Emily said. Rachel lit up at getting something correct. "So, your biological parents were Clara and Frankie, but in some cases where the biological parents can't take care of their children, adoptive parents can." Emily glanced down to make sure that Rachel was actually understanding everything. They had explained it before, but Rachel seemed to be fully paying attention now. "Right now, we're your foster parents, which means we have a little bit of custody of you, but its not permanent." Emily watched Rachel's face fall and for a moment, a look of sheer panic came across it. She quickly wrapped her arms around the little girl tighter and pressed on. "But the adoption makes it permanent. The three of us go to court, and JJ and I sign some papers, and the judge signs some papers and then you are officially our daughter."

"Like for real? Like...you'd both be my moms?"

"Yep." Emily said with a bright smile. "Would you like that?"

"Yeah." Rachel whispered, a tiny smile appearing across her face. Emily bent down and kissed her nose again. Rachel giggled and tried to tickle Emily's stomach, while trying to remain quiet enough not to wake up JJ. Rachel sat up a bit as Emily squirmed under her and tickled furiously. The little girl paused as she accidentally pulled the side of Emily's shirt down. "What's that?" She asked, pointing to the clover burn just above Emily's breast. "Is it a tattoo! Can I get one!" She asked excitedly.

Emily frowned and sat up, leaning against the backboard. She pulled Rachel with her so the little girl was sitting on her lap. "No." She said quietly. "Its not a tattoo." Emily and JJ hadn't really told Rachel anything about Doyle, not wanting to scare her and not thinking it was necessary. They did mention that Emily had had to go away in hiding for a bit in case she somehow heard about Emily's 'death'. "Do you remember what JJ and I told you about? How I had to go away for a few months before you lived with us?"