April 6, 2011

Morgan heard a sharp knock to the door of his office. He really wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone at all, but of course as FBI Agent he was supposed to act as nothing happened when he was working. He tried so hard to act like it was all the same, only it wasn't, not by far. He couldn't bring himself to pass by Emily's desk, not even look at it, despite that he had no problem staring at the picture on the wall. For some strange reason he found that comforting, like someway to keep his departed colleague with them everyday.

"Come in." he murmured, not really looking up from the file report he'd been finishing.

He heard a door open and close and someone took a seat right in front of him. For a second he didn't look up. He knew who was. Or at least he was certain it wasn't Garcia, Reid or Hotch. Rossi. Seaver didn't really have that much confidence to come into his office. She'd just bonded with Rossi.

He met the older man's gaze. He seemed to have gotten twenty years older in the last few weeks. His wrinkles more pronounced, he just wasn't as fast as he had been just the month before. Derek at his sight looked briefly to his lap and then back at him. "You need something?"

Rossi stared for a few seconds without replying. "Just here to check if everything's okay."

"I'm fine." he said hastily, ever since the funeral, he'd tried so bad to be strong for everyone, he'd succeeded. Almost, he was trying to be strong for everyone but himself. He'd cried himself to sleep a couple of times, but as soon as he'd realized he could cry all the tears he wanted and that wouldn't bring Emily back, he'd just stopped. He'd been feeling rather apathic, maybe he was depressed, maybe it was just grief.

When Rossi didn't just stand and leave he felt slightly irritated by the man's attitude. "If you want to ask something go right ahead."

And Rossi nodded. He pulled his chair a little bit closer to the desk. "I just would like to know a thing, I hope you won't think I'm intruding your personal life."

The bald Agent relaxed visibly, for no real reason. "Ask."

"Why did you get so mad when we found out Emily slept with Doyle?" he asked, but then wanting to clarify, given the man's puzzled face, he added. "What I mean is, I got mad, everyone got mad when JJ told us what she did." he stopped a second just to make sure Morgan was still following him. "But you seemed to take it personally or anyway harder than us."

Morgan just shook his head. He'd hoped they wouldn't come to this. Seriously, but he knew he'd lost it. For a second he'd thought of his former partner as some kind of terrorist. They'd always got along so well and when she disappeared he went against her as soon as he was given that chance to, that is, after he found out that detail about her operation.

"I just.. I guess I would have never expected to hear something like this about her." he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to blink away the still forming tears. "I had this really clear image in my mind of her with that... with a terrorist. I flipped." he sniffled.

Rossi nodded, not believing one word his colleague had just said. He'd been mad at Emily, he hadn't sympathized. "But that's not what was bugging you, isn't it?"

Morgan looked at Rossi. He was pleading him with his eyes to stop, stop asking and prying. "Rossi, man-"

"You can not to answer. I won't be offended, I just wondered."

He nodded, a lot like Emily had done before telling him what she'd gone through in Rome. "I don't know if I should tell you – well – it's just," he paused to put together words. He didn't want to say her name, he hadn't been able to yet. "she decided we would keep it between us. I'm not sure whether I should tell you."

"Well, try to think if you were in her shoes, what would you want? Granted there's no right or wrong answer and also everyone is different... it's your call." Rossi shrugged while offering a warm smile to the younger man sitting before him.

Morgan nodded. "Back when she joined the team, we used – we used to go out sometimes all together for drinks. One night we had a bit too much to drink. Reid offered to take us both home since we lived a few blocks away. When he dropped us I walked her to her door and we had this drunken moment. We kissed, just that. Not just, but, you know?" he glared at the man, who gave him a barely perceptible nod. "The morning after we talked, well, she talked. She said she had this rule about not mixing business and pleasure. I agreed it would be best to pretend it never happened."

Rossi tilted his head. "You didn't actually agree, didn't you?"

"No man," he chuckled, remembering the sibling bond he'd formed with her over the years. "I knew she would want to settle down, start a family and that kind of stuff and I wasn't ready. But she'd said it in a way... I don't even know how to explain it. It sounded like one of her strongest rules, something she wouldn't go against in a million years. So when I heard she'd slept with someone on the line of work to get a profile I saw red. I'm just glad I at least told her how I felt, eventually."

Rossi nodded. This was the reason. He hardly believed Morgan when he said he agreed with Emily not pursuing any kind of relationship based on a drunken kiss. But he also was fairly sure any of them would have risked their careers for something that didn't hold guarantees.

Right there his first thought was to get up and go ask her personally, remembering just in time he wouldn't find anyone sitting at her desk or answering her phone. The news hadn't really sunk in for him. He could see it had hit Morgan, both of them had been strong for the whole team, the only difference was Morgan went home every night alone to drink or cry or watch meaningless tv, while he would go to the church sometimes and others would just sleep. He still saw her car in the Bureau lot every morning even though it wasn't there for real.

Morgan looked at him for a second. "Why does it seem like it's not affecting you in the least? You and Hotch act like nothing happened at all."

Rossi just shook his head and his lips stretched in a half smile. "I'm trying to find my peace. Trying to make sense of what happened."

"How's that going?"

"It's not." he simply answered. "I can't see the point in what happened."

Morgan frowned. "How so?"

Rossi shrugged his shoulders. "Emily went on a suicide mission to protect us. She wanted to stop Doyle from finding his son, she wanted to stop him from hurting people. The only one who lost is her. She did everything and more to take him down the first time. She crossed the line to protect his son from the North Koreans and from him. She was easily on of the best people I've ever met and I feel like she died for nothing."

Morgan nodded. Rossi had probably never spoken truer words. "She was." he chuckled. His eyes were watery. "She had everything." he saw as Rossi looked at him expecting him to go on. "She was smart, funny, attractive, beautiful, brave, trustworthy... I don't know man, how could someone hurt such a good person?"

They waited a couple minutes in silence.

Rossi was quite confident he could add a bunch of adjectives to Morgan's list, which was very accurate, that would fit perfectly. Truth is they'd relied on her so much, without even noticing, that having her gone so suddenly was having a much more bigger impact than they thought it would.

"I have no idea. I can tell you this though. Ian Doyle fell in love with her, granted it was her alias, it was still her, it was a part of her. She might have even felt something for him too." he saw Morgan wince visibly at the admission, they both knew could very well be true. "He loved her so much he proposed to her, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And then he found out it was all act. The woman he'd fallen for was fake. None of that had been real, or well, part of that, but he's intelligent enough to know that even if she'd felt something real for him, there was no way they'd have a chance."

Morgan stared at him wide-eyed. "You're saying he did the right thing killing her."

"No, that's not my point. What I'm saying it's that it was a crime of passion he just took his revenge. Still not saying it's right, but I at least can understand why he did it."

Morgan nodded, his eyes shifting to the little photo of him and Emily he had placed on his desk. "You said you're trying to find peace. Doesn't this represent some kind of, I don't know-"

He held up a hand in front of him. "I know what you're saying." he stopped to phrase the next sentence the best he could. "That means I understand why Doyle would do something like that, counting he thought she was the reason his son was dead, but I can't figure out what the plan was for Emily. As I told you she went on a suicide mission, she died and Doyle survived. We got nothing, even if we tried to start an investigation we wouldn't find anything. I feel like there's something missing."

Morgan wiped a lonely tear from the corner of his eye before it could fall. She was surely and definitely gone and no superhero moves or magic trick were going to bring her back. "Emily's missing."

A/N This was already written and it's not going to go this fast from now on, it might, but not this week at least. I structured this whole thing this way: for a while, 5 to 8 chapters, it's going to be alternating Emily and one of the team. I'll try and do one for each character, but I'm not totally sure, then you'll have to see.

Huge thank you to everyone that has reviewed, it means a lot. Hope this isn't too boring, see ya chicos :)