The Usual Rules

Chapter 13

Emily woke up and realized that she couldn't exactly move. She was held in place by tiny hands gripping her shirt tightly on both sides. Grinning, Emily glanced down at Rachel. The little girl was clutching Emily tightly and at some point in the night had rearranged herself from in the middle of Emily and JJ, to completely on top of Emily. They were discovering that in her sleep Rachel was a cuddlier. Her smile faltered a little as she noticed the scratches and cuts on Rachel's face and arms. Emily sighed and put an arm around the little girl's body, holding her in place. Yesterday had been horrible. Emily had never known that she could feel that terrified. She had never even felt that much fear last year with everything Doyle did. She came close when she thought he had gotten to Declan, but this had been so much worse.

It had been particularly horrible since JJ had broken down as well. Emily still hated showing herself as weak and frightened, so she had tried as hard as she could to keep it all in, while at the same time comforting JJ. It had taken so much out of her. The raven haired profiler rolled her head over to check the time and was surprised to find that it was almost noon. They had all been exhausted. JJ and Rachel were still sound asleep.

Emily realized that she needed to get up and use the bathroom. Carefully, she tried to pry the tiny fingers off of her shirt; but was met with Rachel gripping her tighter. Emily winced as Rachel murmured and opened her eyes.

"Good morning Monkey." Emily whispered. "Sorry I woke you, curl up to JJ and go back to sleep. I'm just gonna go make some coffee."

"No I'm awake. I want to help you." Rachel insisted, stretching herself out and attempting to crawl off Emily and out of the bed. Emily caught her as she almost fell. That would have certainly woken JJ up.

"Okay, come on." Emily set Rachel upright and pulled on a sweatshirt. The two of them tip toed downstairs and to Emily's surprise, Rachel was quick to grab her hand. Emily grinned. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" She asked. Rachel nodded, but seemed reluctant to let go of Emily's hand. "I've got to go too, come on." Emily said. If Rachel was going to be clingy, that was fine. Emily brushed her teeth while Rachel relieved herself, then the two traded places. "Hungry?" Emily asked as she washed her hands. Rachel nodded. "Okay, lets see if we can find something to eat."

"Can we wake JJ up to feed us?"

"No!" Emily said with a laugh. "We'll let her sleep. We can find something to make. I'm not as incompetent as JJ makes me seem."

"What does incompetent mean?" Rachel asked as she climbed up onto one of the kitchen stools.

"It means that you don't really have the skills to do something. Like you're not very good at it." Emily answered while she began to dig around the fridge.

"Oh." Rachel said softly. "So, I'm incompetent at school?"

Emily turned around and met Rachel's eyes. "No. You are not." She said firmly.

"But I don't have the skills. I'm not very good at it yet." Rachel stated matter of factly.

"Yeah, but that's how everyone is when they are learning. Its not quite the same thing."

"Oh, okay. Can we make pancakes?"

Emily frowned. She would love pancakes, but she was certainly incompetent with that particular food. "We can try." She said warily. She was probably about to poison her kid. Rachel noticed the hesitation as Emily pulled out the ingredients. The seven year old hopped down from the stool and dragged it over to the stove.

"I'll help. I remember how JJ did it." She said happily.

"Okay great." Emily said. She could use all the help she could get. The profiler got out all of the ingredients and began mixing them into the bowl. She measured out the batter and milk while Rachel took great pleasure in dumping them into the bowl together. Emily tried cracking an egg and to Rachel's delight, she got to put her hand into the sticky mixture to dig out the egg shells.