I'm working on a sequence of stories that belong together but still stand for themselves.

Thanks to Flames101 for Beta Reading. You are a great help!

Criminal Minds is not mine.

Changing roles

Emily was tired; it had been a long hunt to find the casino killer. Her head rested against the cold of the window, while her eyes stared blindly at the buildings flying by. She was really looking forward to a long bath and maybe reading a few pages in her new book, a romance she had bought about three weeks ago and not opened once since then. Sometime in the past month she had discovered that crying over a fictional character's misery allowed her to forget her own.

The sudden sound of Morgan slamming his phone down between their seats had her jumping out of her thoughts.

"Wow, you okay?" She glanced at him anxiously, watching as he rubbed a hand over his face. He obviously wasn't, and hadn't been, ok for the last few hours. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just want to get home," he replied simply. He could feel her eyes burning holes into him, so he focused more on the street.

She smiled. Whenever he tried to avoid being read by any of his profiler colleagues he ended up giving away a lot more than he intended to.

"You are a pretty good liar, but sadly enough you trained me to read your mind and 'homesickness' is definitely not the reason why you are upset…"

Her eyes instinctively went to his phone. She was pretty sure she had no right to look through it, but if he wouldn't talk to her, when something was so obviously bugging him, she would risk it. Her hand snatched forward pulling the phone out of his reach.

"Emily…" he protested. He didn't get farther in his lament as she had already traced down his last phone call.

He sighed, he wanted to be mad at her for doing that, but somehow he couldn't. They had grown too close to hide something as simple as who was calling them. After all the tears she had shed in front of him he was, for once, sure that she trusted him, so he needed to do the same thing.

"Why is Penelope not answering your phone calls?" Her voice was wary. The fact that his best friend wasn't answering his phone calls seemed more than suspicious. Since Emily had known the pair they had even seemed closer than best friends. And she knew their friendship had begun long before Emily had arrived on scene.

Thinking about it, Garcia had been acting very weird the last few times she had seen her on the web cam. She seemed disturbed, which was really hard to do with her crazy friend. Emily replaced Morgan's phone where she'd picked it up and looked behind her to see what Reid was up to. He seemed fast asleep and the iPod in his hand was obviously on. He wouldn't hear a thing, she was sure. She turned back to face Morgan, this time with raised eyebrows.

"I spent the night at her place," Morgan confessed reluctantly.

She let out a gasp that earned her a perturbed look from him and an eye roll.

"Not like that. She was upset because of a fight with Kevin, she called me up, and we watched a movie together… I guess she had too much wine…"

Emily leaned back against her seat, grinning. "You should have known better than to let her drink wine." Their friend had never been too good with that sort of alcohol and they all knew it.

"She wouldn't stop, so I decided supervising was better than nothing."

"But her being drunk doesn't explain why she doesn't want talk to you."

Morgan shrugged, focusing on the street. He had a pretty good idea what had been wrong with his friend, but that was between him and Garcia. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her closing her eyes. It seemed like she had understood his cue, although she didn't look too happy with it.

"Nothing happened between us," he implored. He wasn't sure why it seemed imperative that he reassure her on that issue, he just had the really strong urge to stress that point again. Emily nodded but didn't open her eyes again for the rest of the drive.

When he got home a few hours later he found her in her PJs on the couch. At first he thought she was reading, but as he came closer he noticed that the book was resting on her chest and she was actually asleep.

He glanced at the title, grimacing as he identified it as some kind of cheesy romance. A smile crept to his lips as he headed for the end of the couch where her blanket pile was. He took one and spread it over her, taking the book and placing it on the table. As the fabric came to rest on her, she unconsciously rearranged her position, pulling the soft material closer. He hadn't realized how tired she had been on their way back.

With her lying there, the realization flushed over him, of how grateful he was that he had gotten a second chance with her. He couldn't help but think back to eight months ago, when he had finally found her in that big abandoned building. His instant reaction was relief at seeing her, but that had soon changed when he'd noticed her injury. Her blood had stuck to his hands as he had tried to stop the bleeding; his other hand had found hers in a desperate attempt at keeping her awake.

Weeks later, when he had been having a bad night and wasn't being very rational, he had decided that the reason for her death had been that he had let her hand go. She'd squeezed his hand when he'd asked her to. He had felt how she was clinging on to life just by holding his hand and then when the paramedics had come he had refused to let go. Finally, when they had her ready for transport, he had to make a decision, go hunting for the man who had done this to her, or stay with her. At the time, he had thought that hunting Doyle was the thing Emily would want him to do and that it would be a relief for her when she woke to know that they'd caught him. So he'd let go.

Emily turned again, murmuring something under her breath. He came out of the memory of the worst day of his life to reality, watching her. He suddenly realized that his cheek was wet with tears and he was glad that she hadn't woken up. He used his sleeve to wipe the tears away. Derek knew that it would kill her to see him crying; she'd only blame herself again. She couldn't hide the fact from him that she was still trying to make up for all of this. He had come to accept the past, but she was far from it and he understood why. It hadn't been a lie, when he had told her a couple of weeks ago that he would have been outraged if someone had just taken his life away.

He crouched down, catching some loose hair that had fallen onto her face, gently pushing them back. He had never seen her this peaceful, but at the same time so vulnerable. Usually, she'd used the couch for a quick nap; he'd never seen her out like this. But he was glad that she was able to relax. It was the first step back to a normal life and she really needed that.

"How did talking with Pen go?" It was more a murmur, which was an indication that she was only half awake.

"We're good," he said with a small smile, before pulling the blanket up a little more. "I'm going to be gone for a little while. If I don't catch you tonight, I'll see you in the morning, princess."

He got up.

"Okay." Her sleepy voice was only a whisper as she turned around facing the back of the couch cuddling up to the soft material.

He smiled and headed upstairs to change into his working cloths. He had seen that she had fallen in love with the house he had been fixing the past year and she was going to get it one way or another. Derek was even at the point where he'd reasonably accept her not paying for it at all. All he wanted was just to see that happy smile on her face and to have her feel safe.