third person's pov

It's been a week since the birthday party happened and four days since the whole Carl Buford thing, and Emily is dead. No one suspected and expected it to happen. Sydney knew how upset her dad was about this, as they were close, like brother-sister close, and now that's gone.

"Are you sure that she's dead?" Spencer asked as he came into Sydney's den unannounced. How rude.

"Hi, to you too, and as far as I know, yes." Sydney says to her dad as she hears him sigh.

"Okay, wow, I can't believe she's dead." Spencer says as his mind is going insane and it's everywhere. So bad that it's causing him to have a migraine or a headache. He would take some more tylenol, but it's an addictive drug, and he doesn't want to be addicted to drugs again. So he has to wait a full twenty-four hours.

"Yeah, no kidding," Sydney says to him as she still can't believe that Beth is dead. (Amelia and Annie's mom). she then looked up at her dad, which resulted in him looking at her. "Does that mean I get her position? Or is some rando going to replace her?"

It took Spencer a couple of moments to realize what she was talking about. Sydney's ultimate goal is to become the unit chief, which is Hotch's job. She wants to become a unit chief so she can boss people around. Which sounds like Sydney anyway.

"No, you just want Hotch's job so you can boss Morgan around." Spencer says, which made her frown as he took the fun out of it. Which he has a tendency to do. She frowned at him as she took a sip from her Dr. Pepper.

"Can I go back to reading Harry Potter without interruptions? Somebody interrupted me. Which was rude, by the way. Thank you very much." Sydney says to her dad as despite his mood and emotions right now, he smiles. Syd could always make him smile no matter what. She's the light in the darkness of his life.

"Haven't you read those books enough? You can quote the books and the movies." Spencer says, proving Sydney's point, but she wasn't going to admit it.

She gives him a blinking look before she grabs the book and shields her face with the book. Spencer couldn't help but smile as he stepped towards his daughter and kissed her head and whispered in her ear: "Love you, baby." He says to her as she has a soft smile as he is the only person who calls her 'baby'. After the sweet moment, he left Sydney's den and went towards the others as they had a case.

After two hours, it was quiet at the BAU, which it almost never was. Sydney is trying to keep herself together as she's been bottling up her emotions, which she has been trying not to do. What broke her out of her thoughts was her phone ringing without looking to see who it was, she answered it. Not caring either way.

"Hey, baby." Was the voice that made Sydney's neck hairs stand up immediately as it was her mother.

"Hey." Sydney replies back, not having the willpower of saying any sarcastic comments as she isn't in the mood.

"What's wrong? Are you crying?" Cat asked her daughter as she had her daughter's number memorized.

"it's hard. Life is hard, mom." Sydney says as Cat froze as Sydney never called her mom.

"Why do you say that, baby?" She asks her daughter as Sydney broke down in tears, not caring as no one else besides her mother can hear her crying.

"it's all too much. I want to quit. It's so much pressure, trying to be that perfect daughter and all the fucking stress. It's too much, mom." Sydney says not caring if she is having an actual conversation with her mother, she just wants to talk to someone and let it out.

"Well, what do you want to do about it?" Cat asks her daughter with fake sympathy as usual but that's the least of Syd's worries.

"I don't know." Sydney says as she wiped her tears on her hoodie, as she doesn't feel like getting up to grab her tissue box that's on her bookshelf that Derek built a while back.

"Well, what do you wanna do?" Cat asked her daughter as Sydney ended up getting up and getting her tissue box as she's thinking what she's going to do. There were voices in the background on her mother's side. "I gotta go baby, love you." Cat says as she hangs up before Sydney could even say anything.

She decides to venture off and get some air and to make it less obvious that she was crying and having a meltdown. Despite her mother being a crazed psychopath and murder it felt good talking about her emotions to her mother, as she just wanted to talk and get some of it out of her chest. Then before she head back to the BAU Headquarters she went to the local coffee shop where her dad would often get her coffee. Not even five minutes later she walked out and headed back to the BAU.

When she got back she went to the elevator and pressed the button for the main floor. She occasionally took sips out of her coffee before a news report caught attention. It was about her dad, she hurriedly ran to Penelope's cave and banged on the door. not even a minute later penelope opened the door and saw the frazzled expression. "Dad...trouble...shot...oh god." Sydney says moments later she got herself sick in Penelope's waste basket.

She carried the basket to the hospital and they ran to the floor where Spencer is as Derek texted Sydney but she was so occupied with keeping her contents in her stomach that Penelope was her assistant on that. Derek sees Sydney as he was going to ask if she was okay but clearly that would be a stupid question to say.

Spencer was awake as Penelope was asking him a ton of questions which he answered to the best of his ability. "Before you question Syd, your dad is alright just has a couple bruises, scrapes, some new scars but other than that he's fine." Derek tells the girl that she couldn't look up at anyone as she was reflecting on her conversation that she had with her mother on the phone. She knows that she should tell her dad about it but no words come to mind.

She knew that she had to say something otherwise they would be asking her questions. She doesn't really feel like having the attention on her, especially at the moment and the current predicament. She looked up at Derek and gave him a quick nod of the head. "Okay, that's good to hear, but can we be alone for a couple of minutes?" She says to them who all nod their head as Derek quickly kisses the girl's head as he follows the others.

Since he wasn't in a lot of pain, he sat up and looked at sydney. Wondering what she wanted to say. He had a broken arm but that was about it as his other wounds will heal in a couple weeks. Sydney thought about this long and hard (okay for about an hour) of how she wanted to tell her dad, as she's working on trying to tell him these sorts of things and not to keep it away and bottled up. "We need to talk."

Sydney takes a couple breaths to calm herself down before she starts talking. "I got a call today, it was from mom, and I um-we talked about a couple things actually that shockingly wasn't about her. It was weirdly nice to talk about an actual conversation with her. I had another breakdown, what a shock. I didn't care that I was having an actual conversation, I just needed someone to talk to. you and everyone else were on the case and I didn't think about going to Penelope either but that's beside the point." Sydney says as she was rambling like she does and despite what's wrong with him, he understood what she was saying.

He listened to every word that she said, he sat up a little bit more as Sydney. "I didn't know what else to do." She says as he opened his arms as much as he could as her lip was quivering. She got into his arms and slowly relaxed. He rubbed her back, to calm her down and it was working.

"it's okay, baby." He says not a minute later the rest of the team came back into the room and saw that Sydney was knocked out asleep in her dad's arms.

When the team saw Syd asleep in Spencer's arms, they had two guesses as to what the father and daughter talked about.

"What happened to Syd?" Penelope asked Spencer as he told the team what Sydney had told him and about the conversation of Sydney and Catherine. "Oh my god." Penelope says particularly to herself as Derek had an arm around her. mentally letting her know that it's okay.

later

After Sydney woke up from her nap, she wasn't at the hospital like she was before her nap. She stirred around in her sleep as she adjusted to the lights, but when she opened up an eye and saw the familiar aura of her fairy lights in her room. She was confused as she knew that this wasn't the hospital.

She then hurried out of her room, looking distressed, but when she saw her Dad talking to JJ, she knew that she wasn't imagining it. She took a deep breath as they hadn't seen her, which is probably a good thing.

So when Derek put his hand on Sydney's shoulder she freaked out. She nearly clocked Derek in the face as that's when Spencer and JJ looked at the two. "Holy Jesus, mother of God. Don't do that again!" Sydney says to Derek as he tries not to be smug about it.

"Okay, miss jumpy." Derek says as Sydney mutters words under her breath as she heads back to her room. Derek, Spencer and JJ shared a look before Derek shrugged his shoulders before following Sydney up to her room.

He knocked on the door and a groan was heard from the other side of the door. "Derek, I swear to god, if you scare me one more time...." Sydney says before she tripped but she caught her balance. "Shit, fuck, crap..."

Derek stood amused when Sydney opened the door as he had a smile on his face as she stuck her tongue out at him and he returned it back to her.

"You good, shorty?" Derek asked her as she gave him a monotone look as she was hugging her knees as she sat on her bed.

"Derek, please don't ask twenty million follow-up questions." Sydney says to him as he holds his hands up in surrender.

"I'm just going to ask if you're okay, that's all." He says to her as she sighs.

"I don't know if I am." She says as he sat beside her on her bed.

"Is it about the call with your mom? With amelia? What is it?" He asked her as he looked at her, waiting for a response.

Sydney lets out a sigh. "It's hard, Derek. It's hard trying to live up to a stupid legacy."

"What legacy?" he asked her.

"it's hard trying to be that perfect daughter who doesn't have any fucking insecurities and eating disorders. trying to be that normal daughter that everyone wants." Sydney exclaims as she has tears in her eyes as Derek looks at her.

"Why are you trying to be the perfect daughter?" Derek asks her.

"Because my life would be so much easier if I didn't have all my fucking issues. maybe - maybe i'd have some friends to hang around with outside of grown-ups. No offense." Sydney says as he looks at her, seeing her complete mood change.

"Is that what this is all about? You want to be the perfect daughter so you'd have some friends and people would finally understand you and take you seriously." Derek asked her as she went to say something, but then she looked at him.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about." Sydney says quietly to him.

"You don't need to be perfect, Syd. We love you because of you. Yes, you may have some issues and other stuff, but we don't see that. We all see a nice, kind-hearted girl who is afraid to speak her peace because she thinks that people will judge her." Derek says to her as he grabs her hands. "You don't need to change anything about you, Syd. Don't listen to anyone who says otherwise. Okay?" Derek says to her as she takes in the words as she nods her head.

"Yeah." Syd says as Derek brings the girl into a hug as she cries on his shoulder.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

later

Sydney was wrong in her journal in her room, which is something that she hadn't done in a while, and she felt right to start it up again. She had her stuffed animals in a line as she was reading to them as if they could listen to her.

"...And the girl who thought no one would understand found out that the boy that she would talk to every day at the market did in fact understand her, and he vowed never to leave her side. Promising her that he's with her forever and after." Sydney says as she hears talking coming from downstairs, probably Rossi, giving a cooking lesson or something.

Syd's been cooped in her room all afternoon, only getting out to fill up her water bottle. she just wants to be alone in her cocoon of her room.

Syd walked downstairs to get her backpack as she left it on the couch, and just before she got to the stairs, she heard JJ calling her.

"You want to stay down here, Syd?" JJ asked as Sydney turned around, having a small fake smile.

"And socialize, nah." Sydney says before marching back up before turning around. "Thanks for the offer. Gotta work on that studying for the um, algebra test, yay. So tootles." Syd says before disappearing around the corner.

JJ looks at Derek and everyone else. "Did she just say...tootles?" She asked. "She never says that."

Before anyone could say anything, Spencer was already walking up the stairs as Sydney logged into her computer and texted Owen and started her algebra.

She heard a knock on her door, which made her groan. "What? I'm busy." She says from her room as Spencer opens the door.

"Are you good, you never say tootles." Spencer says as Syd stopped and looked up.

"If you're going to do that follow-up question crap. please don't. I want to save my sanity." Syd says as Spencer gives her a look.

"Is there anything wrong?" Spencer asked as Sydney groaned and leaned her head back.

"Look, I just want to get my test tomorrow, so I can sleep." Sydney says.

"You're picking your nails again. Is this about what you talked to Derek about earlier?" Spencer asked as Sydney sighed at what he said as if he wasn't wrong.

"Not really, the entire thing." Syd says as now she starts clicking her pen.

"Syd, please don't push me away, okay. If there's anything please, please tell me, okay." Spencer says, moving a strain of Syd's hair behind her ear as he leaned a little bit and kissed her head. He got up as him and Syd made eye contact as he could see right through, but he kept pestering her with questions. She never would answer then, and she'd lash out.

When Spencer walked towards the door, he turned back around to Syd as she was staring at him. Like she wanted to talk about it, but her mouth and body would let her stand up and tell him.

Spencer gave her a last look before closing her door as she sighed.

"I need you, daddy. I want you." She whispers to herself as her Dad was already out her door, and heading back downstairs where everyone else was.

✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧

Here is a chapter for Syd!
hope you like it <3

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