Annabel Lee ─ emily prentiss

twenty-eight

Me vs. making up detailed lore about characters we barely know.

★★★

OF ALL the curveballs Emily could have imagined for today, her mother showing up at the BAU was not one of them. Not even in her wildest nightmares could she have conjured up the possibility of Elizabeth Prentiss arguing her way into Quantico up to Hotch's office and insisting the team take the case of Elizabeth's missing Russian associate. Emily truly had no words for the display of audacity.

The last communication between Emily and Elizabeth had been a week or so after Christmas, when Emily texted Elizabeth to say that the tree was waiting on her doorstep. Elizabeth called twice since then—one to Emily's cell, one to the home phone—but Emily never picked up. She couldn't bring herself to leave a voicemail. In retrospect, her knee-jerk reaction to what Emily said at Christmas had been...inappropriate. She didn't think she was wrong for wanting Emily to be cautious and really think through the decision to take in a troubled kid so hastily considering Emily had zero experience, but there were better ways to impart that advice than snapping. She'd fallen back into the trap of the same dynamic they'd had for decades.

A whole host of factors created tension in their relationship starting way back in Emily's childhood, including Elizabeth's own upbringing and the hazards of her occupation. Elizabeth grew up in the stereotypical wealthy household with detached parents more married to their jobs than to each other. It stunted her capacity to connect with her daughter and be the warm, doting mother. Her job also kept her busy, making it harder to actually spend time with Emily. Emily resented her for all of the moving around they had to do. Everything swirled together into a perfect storm of animosity between them as Emily grew up.

Once Emily moved out and went to college, things smoothed out a bit because they weren't around each other all the time. It was easy to go weeks, eventually months without speaking and keeping their phone conversations too brief to discuss anything sensitive. Whenever they were with each other, though, Elizabeth and Emily both fell back into bad habits. They had short fuses. They were stubborn. They argued over almost everything. The tiniest things pissed them off.

Bringing the case of her missing former colleague to the BAU had really not been ideal after the way things were left at Christmas, but Elizabeth saw no other options. Unsurprisingly, Emily didn't seem thrilled to see her, and they managed to get into an argument in the twenty minutes they were together in Elizabeth's study. Things hadn't defrosted when Elizabeth returned to the BAU with more information.

At her second visit to the BAU, she saw two framed photos on Emily's desk. One was of a freckle-faced teenage girl smiling as she put a red ornament on a Christmas tree, and the other was of the same girl and Emily at a restaurant with their arms around each other, both of them grinning wide. Elizabeth assumed the girl was Bel. Bel and Emily looked so genuinely happy together, and seeing it made Elizabeth feel a mix of jealousy, happiness, and guilt.

She was surprised but pleased when Emily told her the outcome of the case in person at her home instead of over the phone.

Despite all of the anger at her mother Emily harbored, she still craved Elizabeth's approval.

"I saw the photos on your desk," Elizabeth said as the conversation hit a lull. "Is that Bel? That was her name, wasn't it?"

"It is. That's her, yes," Emily replied cautiously, waiting for the trap to clamp down on her once she took the bait. Their conversation had actually been good just now, but her mother had a talent for ruining decent interactions simply by being herself.