Work Text:
"I don't think I loved you right."
It's the sentence that makes her stop in her tracks on her way out of the house; out of this god forsaken house where happiness goes to die. She doesn't even know why she's here. She shouldn't be. There is no actual reason for her to be because all she ever feels is anger and nothing that she ever gets resembles closure. But now she turns around and looks at the lady, whose legs are balancing on a lounge chair and whose lap is covered with a blanket.
"What?"
Her mother looks different now. Gone are the days where she was this all powerful entity, the monster that didn't hide in her closet but slept in the room down the hall. Her hair is no longer dark and her features don't look like they could cut her anymore. An illusion perhaps because her mother's greatest weapon have always been her words.
Elizabeth is looking at her now, with eyes that speak of sorrow. It's strange to see because they have never been anything but cold. She would know. They've fought thousands of times and never made up. How Emily used to crave this expression on her mothers face. How she used to beg god that her mother would finally realize that she wasn't a monster.
"I wasn't a very good mother, was I?"
Emily shakes her head, her feet still half way out the door. "No," she says after taking a deep breath. "You aren't, still."
Elizabeth nods, the frown lines next to her mouth digging deeper into her skin. "I think I knew that." She frowns. "I knew but never did anything about it, did I?"
"No, you never did do anything about it." Emily's hand crawls up her coat, holding onto the lapel in an desperate attempt to steady herself. "What brought this on?"
Elizabeth straightens her back as much as she can. That isn't a lot nowadays. She's eighty now and it shows. She's smaller then she used to be, no longer towering over her daughter's childish figure with glowing eyes and a cruel mouth. "I've been watching the other people here." There's a sad smile on her lips now. "Their children visit as often as they can."
Emily almost scoffs. "Don't I visit as often as I can?"
"No," her mother answers and to her suprise, it almost sounds humorous. "You visit as often as you have to."
Elizabeth has been living in this care place for almost a year now. Emily hadn't seen her mother in years before that but had then suddenly she received a call that her mother had had a heart attack. And since there were no other next of kin, the responsibility fell on her. Emily thinks she tries as hard as she can. She tries to be there every two weeks, takes her mother out on a walk and does her best to fill the awkward silence with bits of chatter but what is she supposed to talk about? Elizabeth has never been interested in her and Emily actually loves her life now. She doesn't want a ghost from the past to invade. So she separates reality from nightmare and spends time with her mother with the desperate hope to wake up as quickly as possible.
"I don't blame you," Elizabeth says and Emily arches an eyebrow.
"That would be a first," she spits out with more disdain then she'd intended.
Her mother shrugs. "As I said, I've never been a good mother. I realize that now." She sighs. "Do you want to know something?"
Emily isn't sure that she does but she nods nonetheless. "Sure."
"If I could go back in time, I wouldn't change it."
Emily recoils as if she'd been struck by lightening. There's a lot that she'd have trusted her mother to say but this was cruel, even for her. She stares, her veins filled with cold blood and her ears ringing.
Elizabeth fiddles with the hemn of her blanket. "Don't look like a kicked puppy. We've established what I am, there's no changing that with all the time in the world." Even now she's like the soul sucking demon that Emily grew up with. God. The anger curses through her veins like lava now. "And you've established who you are," Elizabeth adds thoughtfully. "I don't think we could ever have been anything different."
Emily's hand curls into a fist. She wants to scream, wants to cry and wants to tell her mother how hard she had tried. How desperately she had craved her approval, her love and how many times she had changed herself in order for her mother to maybe, just maybe, appreciate her daughter. But she says nothing.
Elizabeth traces a finger along her own nose. "We look alike; you and me. We always have. Even now." Her gaze lingers on Emily's hair and Emily's back stiffens. She'd stopped dying it a few months ago. But no one had made her feel as self conscious about it as her own mother in this very moment. "But we have never been alike. You were always... Much softer then me."
Emily wishes that she could turn back time and show her mother what she had to do in order to survive. Who she had to be in order to become this version of herself. But some secrets are better of buried by time.
"But you've also always been able to do what a situation warranted. In certain ways, I think you are more ruthless then me." Dark eyes meet and for a second, Emily feels as though she is Lauren once again, digging the grave for her own self to climb into. But no. She is still here and she is still Emily Prentiss. "Tell me, are you happy?"
Her mouth opens and closes a second later. Is she? Is she happy? The simple answer is yes. Because she has a job that might take a lot but it's a job that is so vitally importance that it makes it worth it. She has friends whom she would catch bullets for and if Penelope was right, she also had JJ, who was eager to figure out what their connection actually meant. So yeah, she is happy. Happier then she'd ever been.
"Yes."
Elizabeth smiles. "Then you understand why I wouldn't turn back time if I could. Because you made it here."
Emily frowns. "Don't you think I could have been happier, if I'd had a mother who loved me?"
"Darling," her mother says and there is no malice behind her words. "I am me and you are you."
"Is that all you have to say?"
"Tell me it doesn't explain everything."
Emily bites her lips because to her chagrin, it does explain everything. She signs heavily and rolls back her shoulders. "I'll be back when I can."
The autumn air outside is cold. It's refreshing. Emily stands in front of her car, somehow unable to get in. So she leans against it and watches as the blue of the sky begins to fade. "I am who I am," she whispers. "Despite everything, despite you."
She unlocks the car.