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

This is part 2 and set during Proof (7x02).

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

Criminal Minds is not mine.

Healing Wounds

Emily closed the motel room door behind her. None of them had thought they would get any sleep that night, but there seemed to be nothing else to do and Hotch had sent them off. She breathed in heavily, rethinking the events of the day. To her own surprise it wasn't the facts about the brutal murders that haunted her, but the fight between JJ and Reid.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought about the heart broken face of the blonde. Emily had only heard the louder end of the conversation but that had been enough to cause her heart to fill up with guilt again. The two of them, JJ and Reid, had been the best of friends for as long as she knew them and she couldn't imagine how she had been able to destroy that. She sank down at the back of the door covering her face in her arms.

There she was again all by herself in a hotel room, far away from home, crying like a baby. Who would have thought that after all the sorrow she'd already experienced it could still get worse. Again and again she heard Reid's last words to JJ, that it was too late for apologizing. Not only had she broken the hearts of all her friends, but she had also destroyed their friendship and trust in each other. If Emily was asked about one thing she regretted in her life it would be going along with the plan the agents had proposed to her after waking up. Of course, they had already buried her anyways, regardless of her answer to his proposal, but she could have taken away so much of their hardship by at least letting them know she was still alive.

Emily allowed herself one last sob and then stood up. She needed to get out of this funk or her psychologist would have real things to worry about. She used the sleeve of her black shirt to wipe her face, trying to fight off the new tears at the same time. According to the therapy she needed to talk to someone and not shut down. She took a deep breath, hoping that would help her brain function logically once again.

JJ was out of question; she had probably cried herself to sleep. Garcia was too far away and Reid wouldn't want to talk to her anyway. That only left Morgan to go to, since Rossi and Hotch were and felt too much like her superiors to go to them for a good cry. She sighed, wiping a hand over her face again, before heading down the hallway to Derek's room.

It didn't take her very long, but she had enough time to recall their conversation earlier. He didn't sound like he was too pissed, but what if he was just really good at hiding his feelings. Her knocking hand stopped midair, but it was too late since it had already hit the door once. For the briefest moment she thought about running down the hallway to hide in a corner until he went back to sleep. But she didn't get the chance to because Derek had already opened the door wide enough to see her.

When he recognized her he opened the door wider, smiling a tired smile.

"What's up?"

Immediately, she processed his reaction, he was trying to read her facial expression. He saw something on her face that put a worried look on his face.

"I'm sorry, you're probably tired," she backtracked, her voice cracking against her will.

The fact that the memories of earlier that day had flashed back into her mind didn't help her conviction either. The tears she had been fighting the past few minutes finally won and there was no way of hiding her feelings any longer. She heard his sighing before he pulled her into a hug. Not wanting to wake anyone else housed in this wing of the hotel, he pulled her back into his room, closing the door behind them. He allowed her a few minutes to calm down a little before he finally spoke.

"What happened between JJ and Reid today was not your fault," he guessed her current feelings, correctly.

The words were barely out of his mouth when she shook her head emphatically.

"Whose fault is it if it isn't mine?" she shot back, determined not to let any of his arguments count. After all, it was her past that had triggered the events around her death. Reid didn't deserve this and she knew that out of all her friends he was probably the most vulnerable. How could she have ever put him through something like this? He could have relapsed and started using again.

Her mind felt as if it stopped with that one thought. She pulled away from Morgan rapidly, in shock. "Did he start again?"

She had missed so much these past few months, how would she know if Reid had lost the struggle against his addiction? Morgan again looked at her with a questioning expression. Her sentence didn't seem to make sense to him so she began to clarify, "Reid, did he start to... "

She couldn't bear to say it. If she was the one responsible for Reid using drugs, she would never forgive herself.

Slowly, it dawned on Derek what his friend was talking about and he shook his head, saying, "He didn't."

His voice was firm, though, he was not going to tell her that he had been worried about Spencer for a while for exactly that reason.

"And if he had it wouldn't have been your fault, either." He added this because the guilty feeling was written all over her face, as she tried to object. But he wouldn't let her, knowing not only his friend but also the psychology behind her emotions. "You didn't choose to be dead, Emily. It was the only way for you to be safe… Even though that was hard on us, it was exactly what we wanted for you. Reid needs time to understand this, but whatever he decides, it's still not your fault. Just give him time."

"But…"

"No buts, Emily," he cut her off in a rather rude way, but that was the only way to silence her doubt. She blinked and glared at him, obviously not satisfied with his answer. It was going to be really hard to convince her in this matter. "Maybe you could just tell him what you felt when you found out about it."

Her glare changed into an unsure look. She had never really given a thought to her own feelings. All she worried about was patching things up with her friends. "What do you mean?"

Derek laughed. "You must have felt something when you woke up and they told you; you were declared dead. Buried already." He watched for her reaction, but she still seemed confused. "I would have been pissed. I wouldn't have let them take my life away," he offered a solution.

Emily's eyes grew sad as she turned towards the window, staring outside. For a while he thought he would not get an answer, then he heard her sobbing and he regretted pushing her that far. He took a few steps towards her and was about to apologize when her cracking voice stopped him.

"I was too tired to fight it."

Admitting that was about the hardest thing she had done in a long time.

"I just woke up after being out for nearly a week and then some agent walks in and tells me that the doctors will refer to me under some name I haven't heard before. That, in fact, Emily Prentiss had died a week ago due to her injuries from her fight with Doyle." Tears were running down her cheeks, but now that she had started to talk she just wanted to keep going. "He said that Agent Prentiss had been buried the day before…"

Her voice was interrupted by sobbing and she put her hands on the window sill to steady herself. "They referred to my life like it had been someone else, but at the same time told me that my old life was over." Her body was shaking and she was about to sink to floor when two strong arms wrapped themselves around her from behind, holding her up. "I remember that a doctor came running in yelling at the agent to leave. I guess I was close to a heart attack or something, over my own death." She couldn't stop herself from smirking sarcastically. But at that moment she had been very satisfied with the doctor kicking the agent out of her room.

"They waited for me to get better, before they approached me again. Giving me a plane ticket to Paris where I was to meet JJ." She remembered how the prospect of meeting someone from her old life helped her to refuse to acknowledge the fact that her old life was over. "The night after I met JJ to get my new identities it suddenly hit me." Her body shook while she tried to keep all the memories from flushing over her. "I wasn't going to see any of you again. You lost one friend…" the tears ran down her cheeks again. "…but… " She struggled to keep her voice steady and finally turned around to face Derek. "…that night, I realized that I had lost six of them. With one decision I had lost all the people I considered family. All that I had left was my fake identity and Doyle, in my nightmares."

He tightened the arms around her and waited until she had shed all the tears she had been holding back for the last year. He started to get the feeling that his pain over her death was nothing compared to what she had gone through and he had no idea how she had gone through all that alone. It would have killed him to lose what she had lost.

"Maybe…" he started as she relaxed against him. "…if you tell Reid only some of what you've just told me…" Morgan wasn't sure how to phrase it. "It helps to hear your side of the story, you know."

She nodded quietly against his chest. It seemed like all her strength had left her now that she was done crying.

"You should get some sleep, princess."

Again, she nodded not even reacting to his newly created nickname for her. Even more worried now with this new side of Emily showing, he guided her down the hallway back to her room, making sure she was settled in and assuring her that she could wake him any time.

During that night, he didn't get much sleep. Suddenly the anger that he had been trying to hide from everyone had disappeared, leaving only a big hole in his heart. When he finally seemed to fall asleep his alarm went off and he headed back to the case. To his surprise, and also relief, Emily didn't show any sign of the conversation last night. But she looked a lot better, which had him guess that at least she had gotten a good night's sleep.