Emilia had not thought this through. In her defence, Samantha basically had her cornered, and Emilia couldn't think of an excuse not to take a child into her home for a night. Just one night.

Emilia was a registered foster parent, an aunt to an insane amount of nieces and nephews, and a supervisory agent, which was basically a glorified babysitter when it came to some agents. Emilia would never name names, but he's Russian and 6'2.

Still, now that an actual child was sitting in the passenger seat of her car, Emilia had the sudden realisation that she had absolutely no clue what she was doing. Samantha had given her a file, but the general gist was that Lucie was a traumatised cult kid.

Lucie was a few inches shorter than Emilia, with long dark hair that obscured her face. She stared out the window, even though there was nothing to look at but streetlights. It wasn't unreasonable to wonder if she'd ever seen streetlights before.

The girl looked a bit younger than twelve, but the oversized hoodie she wore might be to blame for that. She arrived in a camo print tank top and leggings, but someone had given her a black hoodie with no strings, meant for if someone's clothes had been taken as evidence. This time, it was just for her to keep warm, because 12-year-old runaways don't have the most complete go bags.

The girl- Lucie. Her name was Lucie. Lucie Maria David. Lucie hadn't said a word this whole time. Emilia couldn't blame her, even the most well-adjusted people could shut down when they were stressed. Still, the car was unbearably silent, and it didn't look like Lucie was going to start talking any time soon.

Emilia turned off the car, opened the door, and Lucie copied her. Okay. A silent car ride was one thing, but someone needed to speak when they got inside.

"So, Lucie, right? With an IE at the end, correct?" Emilia mentally scolded herself for her tone. This was a scared child, not a criminal.

"Yes, uh, yeah, that's right." Lucie's voice was so quiet it was barely audible. The girl followed Emilia into the house, stopping to look at some family photos in the hallway while Emilia walked into the kitchen.

"Do you want something to eat?" Emilia asked, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Far enough so Lucie wouldn't see her as a threat, but close enough to keep an eye on her. Lucie nodded, entering the kitchen as well. She took a seat at Emilia's IKEA kitchen table (that she assembled herself, thank you very much).

"Can you have peanut butter?"

"Mhm."

Emilia took that as a yes, hoping that she didn't accidentally send the kid into anaphylactic shock on her first day.

Emilia gave Lucie the sandwich, and she ate it quickly, as if she was scared Emilia would change her mind and take it back. She wordlessly stood up and placed the plate in the sink, about to turn the tap on. "Don't worry about the dishes." Emilia tried to have a friendlier tone, but Lucie seemed scared all the same.

"Are you tired?"

Lucie nodded.

"Okay. There's a room upstairs. It's not much, but there's a bed and blankets." She made a motion for Lucie to follow her as she walked up the stairs. Lucie clutched her backpack tightly, bubbling with nervous energy.

Emilia opened the door to show Lucie the room, which was about as plain as possible. White walls, grey curtains, a single bed with a green duvet.

"Thanks."

"Of course." Emilia smiled, watching as Lucie cautiously approached the bed. "Do you want to be left alone?"

Lucie nodded.

Emilia shut the door as quietly as she could. She stood outside for a moment, wondering how she'd gone to work child-free and come back home as a single mother.

She made her way back downstairs, remembering that there were dishes to be washed. Before walking into the kitchen, she stared at her family photos for a second. There wasn't anything special about them, they were mostly from when Emilia was a teenager, or a more recent one from last year, with all five Flores kids, their partners and their kids. It looked like a small army.

Once she'd finished washing the dishes, she heard the ping of her phone.

child in a fbi jacket: Hi, Em, I just wanted to check how things are going with Lucie.

emmy award winner: good?
i think so, at least.
i fed her and now she's asleep.

child in a fbi jacket: Wow, Flores. Is that maternal instinct I see?

emmy award winner: how were you raised to think that you need to have "maternal instinct" to know to feed a child??
that's just called "meeting their basic human rights"