"Life is a hell of a thing to happen to a person." - David Rossi
'Let me go.'
It was the last thing she said to him before she lost consciousness, but he sure as hell didn't let her slip under without a fight.
"I got her!" He went down to his knees and grabbed his com to alert the team. "I got her in the basement on the south side. I need a medic." He touched her gently, hesitantly and then took her hand, too afraid to disturb the large piece of wood protruding from her abdomen.
He didn't want to hurt her any more than she was.
"Please. Hey, it's me - I'm right here. You're going to be all right." She closed her eyes and he was afraid she was leaving him."Stay with me, baby. Come on, stay with me."
"Let me go." She opened her eyes and her voice was so soft, so unlike the Prentiss he knew.
"No. No, I am not letting you go." He turned and yelled for help. "Help me!" Then he turned back to Emily, desperate to keep her with him. "Listen to me, I know why you did all of this. I know what you did for Declan. I am so proud of you. Do you understand that? I am proud of you because you are my friend and you are my partner."
She closed her eyes again and then he begged. "No, Emily! Come on, stay with me. If you can hear me please, just squeeze my hand." She opened her eyes again and did as he asked - weakly grabbing his hand and he thought maybe he'd talked her into staying."Yes, there you go. There you go baby, just keep squeezing." And he put his other hand on top of hers.
She closed her eyes and didn't open them again.
After the paramedics got to them, Derek refused to leave her. It didn't matter that the EMT told him that there was nothing more he could do to help, he stayed. He stayed because he wanted Emily to know he wasn't going to leave her, that she wasn't alone.
Once she was in a C-collar and carefully strapped down to a backboard, he helped load her onto the gurney. All the way out of the warehouse, loaded into the ambulance and taken to the emergency room, Derek never let go of her hand.
She was rushed into surgery and it was then he had to let the doctors take her.
"Agent Morgan, you need to let her go." One of the surgeons told him. "We need to get her into surgery and we can't do that if you won't let go of her hand."
He knew he needed to, for Emily's sake, but he couldn't get the sick feeling out of his stomach if he did, he would never see her again.
"Agent, please." His voice was firm. "Every moment we're standing out here is a moment I lose trying to help her."
Derek finally nodded his understanding and leaned close to her ear. "Stay with me, Princess."
It was a rare nickname he'd used on occasion, a play on her last name, because he knew it irritated her. But as much as she pretended to hate it, he would always see a reluctant smile on her face even when she admonished him - it was their thing. He said it because part of him had hoped she would open her eyes and tell him what he could do with his sexist and demeaning moniker.
But she didn't.
Instead, Morgan reluctantly let go of her hand and stood back as the gurney she was laid out on was rushed down the hallway, the surgery doors slowly closing as it continued along before disappearing around a corner.
He didn't know how long he stood there, staring through the glass panes when his vision blurred. And then his body began to shake as he backed up to the wall and slid down to the floor, staring at Prentiss' blood on his hands.
It was where Rossi found him.
"How's she doing?" His usually gruff voice was soft.
"They just took her into surgery." Derek couldn't stop looking at his hands.
"The rest of the team is here." Rossi crouched down in front of him, tapping his fingertips together. Morgan understood, after working with the senior profiler for the last four years, it was indicative of his trying to find the right words before he spoke. "Come on, kid. They're waiting for us."
"I'm staying here." Derek shook his head. "I promised Emily I wouldn't leave her."
To his credit, Dave nodded in empathy but was persistent. "But I think you know she'd be the first to tell you that at times like this we need to stick together."
"Rossi, she's my partner and I want her to know I've got her back." Her blood on his hands was a painful reminder that he didn't that night. "I let her down."
"Derek, look at me." Rossi's voice was strong and no nonsense and insistent. "Look at me."
When he did, Dave's eyes were bright with emotion and it surprised him. While not nearly as stoic as Hotch, Rossi usually managed to keep his emotions in check.
"You didn't let her down." He disagreed with a firm shake of his head. "You stayed with her tonight and let her know she wasn't alone. You were more than her partner, Derek - you were her friend."
"I should have gotten to her before it happened." He berated himself.
And there it was.
"We knew we were working against the clock." Rossi commented with a sigh. "And you know there was no guarantee we were going to find her alive, but we did. Now we need to let the doctor do his job and you need to get cleaned up."
Derek wasn't trying to be obstinate because as irrational as it sounded, once he washed Emily's blood off of his hands it would be as though it never happened. And he didn't want to forget it, ever.
Rossi seemed to read his mind as he stood up and Morgan saw his go bag. When he glanced down at the tee shirt he was wearing, he understood why. Her blood had gotten on his shirt, too. "Derek, none of us are likely to forget what happened tonight. But do you think it's fair to the others to be a walking reminder of it?"
"No." He shook his head slowly before he looked up at the older man. "If I ever get my hands on that son of a bitch-" He stopped for a moment as he considered what he'd been about to say. "You know something, Rossi? I understand a hell of a lot more now why Hotch did what he did, before this happened."
He seemed to make the choice not to reply. "If I don't get you down to that waiting room, the rest of the team is going to come looking for us."
Rossi held out his arm and Morgan grabbed it, while Dave grabbed him just under the elbow to help him stand. "Thanks."
"Any time." He clapped Derek on the shoulder before picking up the bag. "Let's take a walk."
Morgan couldn't help but look back over his shoulder, still not wanting to leave her.
"You know the last thing she'd want is for you to be sitting down there by yourself."
"I know." He had to agree; Emily wasn't a person who wanted a fuss made over her. So instead, he picked up his bag and followed Rossi down the hall to the men's room.
oooooo
When JJ delivered the news that Emily hadn't made it out of surgery, his heart seemed to freeze in place. When it reluctantly started to pump again, he could feel hard thuds compress his chest. It brought back painful memories of how he felt when his father died and all he wanted was to get the hell out of the room, but Garcia wouldn't let him go.
It wasn't until Kevin arrived and took a sobbing Penelope in his arms that Derek was able to get away and get outside. But instead of finding the solitude he was seeking, he found the kid and he could see that Reid was hurting just as much.
So, just as Rossi had taken on a fatherly role to help him, Derek assumed his big-brother role to help Reid.
"She was the closest thing I ever had to a sister." His hands were shoved in his pockets and his voice caught before he cleared his throat, embarrassed at having his emotions betray him. "I told her things I'd never told anyone else."
Derek nodded and probably should have said something, but any words he could have offered would have been platitudes and clichés. "I don't think I really realized before tonight how much she meant to me."
"You were partners," Reid observed. "You worked with her more than any of us."
"I know. But somewhere along the line we became more than partners, we became friends."
"Is that all you were?" His comment seemed to intrigue the younger profiler. "You seemed to have a connection with her that-"
"Hold up there, youngster." Derek cut him off by raising his palm, indicating him to stop. "Emily was my friend and nothing more."
"Then why are you out here instead of in there with the others?" Reid pressed him. "I know you didn't come out here to keep me company, you came out here to grieve."
"Don't profile me, kid." Morgan frowned at him. "You're reading into my behavior and I don't like it."
Reid lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. Derek wanted to argue the point, but the fact that the younger man seemed to have been momentarily distracted from his own grief, he chose not to.
"Morgan, what am I supposed to do now?" The question came to him on a sigh.
"You can always talk to me," Derek tried to reassure him. "You know that."
"I know." Reid gave him a slight, sad smile. "But you're not as nice to look at."
"Neither are you." He couldn't stop the chuckle that rose from his chest into his throat or the grin. It was almost as though Emily were telling him she didn't want him to grieve for her too long. "Reid, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, either." He confessed quietly as his grin faded. "But with that big old brain of yours, I'm sure you'll figure it out."
"I miss her already."
"So do I." He put a hand on Reid's shoulder, knowing what they had to do. "But there are a few other people in there who miss her, too. So what do you say we go back inside and grieve for her together?"
"Has anyone called her mother?" Reid looked troubled. "Ambassador Prentiss needs to know what's happened."
"Hotch will take care of it," Derek reassured him. Their unit chief was good at that sort of thing. He always found the right words to say at times like this. "In the meantime, let's get back in there."
As they walked back into the hospital, he sighed again. "Does the pain ever go away?"
No.
Derek knew that for a fact, because he still missed his dad. But he needed something. So he settled on, "With time it won't hurt so much."
"Your dad?"
He wasn't only smart, he was perceptive.
"Yep."
"Okay." He didn't press for more and only said, "Thanks."
"Any time, kid." He answered as they took their time getting back to the waiting room of grieving colleagues and friends, to grieve with them
"This is really going to suck." - Emily Prentiss