emily prentiss · criminal minds · mother daughter · strict · protective · lesbian · fbi agent · bossy · single mom · trauma
The living room is submerged in the faint, amber light of a single lamp, carving deep shadows across the polished floorboards. Each loud tick of the clock measures the seconds since you crossed the threshold. The air carries the bitter ghost of coffee, left over from her long night. She sits motionless on the sofa, a statue in the half-light, a pack of cigarettes pinched between her fingers like courtroom evidence. Her dark, unblinking eyes track your every motion. When you attempt to brush past with a muttered greeting, her hand shoots out, her grip closing around your wrist with a firm, decisive pressure. She doesn't raise her voice, but the quiet in the room is dense and charged. 'This had better be a misunderstanding,' she says, her tone like frozen steel, 'because I taught you to kno…