"Comment était ta journée à l'école?"

The dark haired boy looked up to his mother from the orange slices she had given him and puckered his lips. "Good."

"Ah," the mother chasted, her finger wagging in the air as she got her daughter's bag ready. "En Français."

Rolling his eyes when his mother turned her head, the little boy bit into his fruit. "Ma journée a été bonne, maman."

"Oh," she chuckled, her eyes widening and she bent down to share a kiss with the five year old. "Très bon, bébé."

"You're still on this French kick?"

The brunette woman spun around and let the older man press a kiss to her cheek, and she smiled up to him. "Well we do live in France," the mother of two hummed, grinning up to him and letting his lips softly plunder hers. "You all packed?"

"Wish I wasn't." He gently untangled the ends of her hair and sighed. "I'm gonna miss you, Em."

Emily smiled softly to the older man, her hand running up and down the back of his suit jacket. "You could stay," she suggested hopefully, her teeth nibbling into her bottom lip as she gave those puppy dog eyes to the man she loved. "We've talked about it before," the brunette reminded him.

"We have, but Alexis is back in New York."

Emily held in her sigh. "Alexis is in college, Rick."

Richard Castle gave a small shake of the head. "We'll work something out."

She let him kiss her cheek before she watched him walk to the front door. The couple had been together long enough to know that she wasn't able to travel with him back and forth from the airport, and it was time to take the kids to their babysitters. "I love you," Emily called out, cracking her fingers as she watched him grab his umbrella.

"I love you too, Em."

The five year old girl tugged on her mother's skirt, gesturing for the brunette to bend down to her level. "Good, mommy?"

Emily smiled, letting the younger twin pat against her cheek, the movement she and her brother used to wipe away tears. "I'm good, baby. Now come on, ok? We have to get you two to Francine's."

The brunette gathered her kids' crayons and playing cards and shoved them into their backpacks before getting them out the door and into their car.

"La ceinture de sécurité," she reminded the two before pulling away from the curb, her hands tight on the wheel.

Alisanne rolled her eyes from the backseat. "We always have seatbelts, maman."

Emily winked at the little girl in the rearview mirror. "Just gotta remind you, baby girl," she laughed.

"We gonna see daddy, mommy?"

The brown eyed woman swallowed the lump in her throat, keeping her gaze straight out the windshield. "Remember, baby? Daddy is over in America."

"Marcy and I wanna see daddy."

"Daddy's saving people, remember?" Emily asked, her eyes flickering up to the mirror so she could see her babies and their faces. "We'll see daddy soon." She pulled up to the apartment and quickly got the pair out of their car seats, running through the rain and up the steps to be sheltered by the terrace that sat above them on the second floor. "Now, what do we say?"

Marc and Alisanne looked up to their mother. "Bonjour Mme Francine. Tu es magnifique aujourd'hui." Good morning Ms. Francine. You look beautiful today.

Emily pecked both children on the head and let the older woman take them inside once she opened the door. "Je serai de retour dans quelques heures. Merci, Francine," she called as she ran back down the steps, waving to her twins as they walked inside the house. "Je vais appeler bientôt."

She used her arm to shield herself from the rain before she got into her car, slamming the door shut and shaking her hair to get the raindrops out.

Blaring from her purse in the passenger seat, her phone caused her anxiety to spike, and Emily's hand flew straight to cover her heart. "Dammit," she cursed, shoving her hair behind her ear before picking up her phone. "Bonjour," she stated, not looking at the number that popped onto the screen.

"Emily?"

Her dark eyes widened, her free hand that had grabbed her seat belt letting the metal fly from her hand. "Aaron?"

"Emily, can you hear me?"

The mother of two cursed, quickly buckling herself and zooming away from the curb she had parked beside. "You cannot be calling me," she whispered harshly, her fear reflecting in those big brown eyes as she drove through the streets of Paris. "What are you doing? Do you understand what you're risking by contacting me?"

"Emily, I-"

"Do you not remember what I've been doing out here?" she hissed, looking around the street before turning a corner. "Aaron, what the hell?"

"Emily," his harsh voice interrupted, causing the brunette to grind her teeth. "He's dead."

The former FBI agent's foot hit the brakes hard, her body stiffening at the words. "What?"

"He's dead, Emily. You can come home."

Emily's eyes filled with tears, a car's horn blaring at her from behind causing her to take her foot off the brake. "He's dead?" she whispered, her voice betraying the strength she had worked decades on building. "He's really dead?"

Hotch nodded against his phone, staring out the windows of his office and watching the rain fall. "He's dead."