A/N - I'm completely obsessed with this story now. Next chapter of Half the Sky coming by tomorrow morning at the latest! I knew two stories at once was a bad idea...but it's turning out to be very good! :)

June 2015

Emily sat at the hotel bar in New York waiting for Hotch to show up. He'd brought up presenting together at this conference when he was in London for her wedding. The whole team had flown in on the jet for the wedding, much to Emily's surprise and delight. Spouses, girlfriends and children did not attend. It was just the team, and, for Emily, it felt like her family had come to see her on her happy day.

Brian enjoyed meeting the people Emily talked about frequently, and the small group who attended the ceremony and reception had a wonderful evening together. It was a lot like JJ's wedding in that they all danced together.

It was when Hotch was dancing with her that he'd said, "The State Department has asked me to present at a conference in June in New York for law enforcement. They want me to do a presentation on counter-terrorism and how to effectively work with various agencies in the United States and abroad. I was wondering if you wanted to co-present with me. I think it would have much more of an impact to have a representative from an agency abroad actually there," he'd said with a grin.

Emily smiled at him, "Sure. It would be nice to work together again, even just for a short conference. Send me the details."

At that point Morgan had cut in, and Emily felt her heartbeat pick up. She'd had one fleeting thought that she was glad Savannah hadn't come, but quickly banished it. Savannah there or Savannah not there shouldn't have mattered. But she held her body slightly away from Derek's, so he couldn't feel her racing heart. She didn't even know why it was racing. "You look beautiful and happy, and I'm happy for you," he'd told her quietly.

The team hadn't stayed long. They flew out the morning after the wedding, and her and Brian had spent a week in Paris, before returning to work and married life.

Married life, Emily thought to herself as she sipped her martini in the bar in that hotel in New York, is not quite what I thought it would be.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a familiar but unexpected voice spoke from behind her, "Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

Emily turned in her bar stool, stunned. "Morgan? What are you doing here? Where's Hotch?"

Derek grinned and sat on the bar stool next to Emily. "Jack had appendicitis and needed to have emergency surgery. He's going to be fine, but Hotch didn't want to leave. He sent me in his place. He told me where he was supposed to meet you and I decided to surprise you instead of calling first."

"Oh," said Emily quietly, then she smiled. "Well, it's good to see you. Do you have any idea what we're going to be presenting tomorrow?"

Morgan laughed, "Not a fucking clue."

Emily joined in his laughter, missing his friendship more than she knew she did until that very moment. "Well, grab a drink and let's go find a quiet table in the lounge. I have our presentation on my laptop and we can go over it."

Their conversation that night was easy and friendly, which made Emily feel happy and relieved. They really hadn't spent a moment alone together except for an hour that February almost a year and a half ago. When he'd come to London with Garcia when she first moved there, he was either working or Garcia was always with them. It was nice to know they could go back to this friendly place given the fact that the last time they'd really spent any significant time alone was in that hotel room the night before she left for London three years before.

They went over their presentation that they would be delivering twice on Thursday, and once again on Friday morning. They talked very little about their personal lives, and split up to head to their hotel rooms early.

The next morning, at the breakfast buffet, Emily was getting herself a cup of coffee and looking for Derek when she automatically just poured him some in one of the paper cups, too. When she turned around, she saw him entering the reception area and smiled brightly, then contained herself. She was happy to see him, but she shouldn't be that happy.

He grinned at her when she handed him his coffee and winked. "Just like old times," he said.

Emily nodded and then inclined her head, "We should go set up."

Their presentation was well-received that day, and after the first ten minutes they got into an easy flow with each other, exactly how they always were when delivering profiles. They improvised a lot, and sometimes they made impromptu remarks that made the audience laugh. In between their presentations, they attended other sessions at the conference together.

The following morning, Emily awoke early, almost sad that this would be ending today. She wasn't flying home until the next morning, but she wasn't sure when Morgan was leaving; she hadn't asked him. Emily put on her exercise clothes and rode the elevator up to the gym on the floor a few above hers, thinking about how it had only taken her about twenty-four hours with Morgan to feel like she'd never left for London at all. Their friendship was just that easy. She really didn't have that in London, even after being there for three years. If she was perfectly honest, she didn't even have that with Brian.

She shook her head when the elevator doors opened and banished that thought from her head. She should not be comparing Derek to Brian. She shouldn't even be thinking about them in the same sentence.

She looked up and found herself face to face with a very sweaty Derek Morgan, who had obviously just finished his workout.

"Still doing a thousand sit-ups a day?" she asked with a smirk.

Derek grinned, "You know it."

Emily laughed and stepped around him to head to the treadmill.

"Hey, Emily," Derek called.

She turned to look at him standing in the elevator, one hand holding the doors open.

"You bring any clothes with you besides suits and exercise gear?"

She raised her eyebrows at him, "Yes. Why?"

"It's supposed to be a gorgeous day today. What do you think about blowing off the conference after our presentation this morning and enjoying New York instead?"

Bad idea, her mind told her. But what came out of her mouth was, "Sure. That sounds great!"

Derek nodded and grinned at her and let the elevator doors close.

"So how's married life treating you?" asked Derek as they walked down a path in Central Park.

Emily only hesitated for a second, "It's good."

Derek chuckled, "That sounds convincing."

Emily grinned. "It is good. It's just not quite what I expected. I expected my companionship with Brian to have more even footing, but it really doesn't. We're working on it."

"Even footing?"

"On the nights I'm home, we have dinner together and he talks about his classes and students and the papers he's writing. But he has a hard time listening to me talk about my job. He's a gentle person, which is something I love about him, but it doesn't translate well to me having someone I can vent to about the kind of work I do."

"I can relate to that," said Derek quietly.

"Life is similar living with Savannah?" asked Emily.

"She doesn't have a hard time listening to me talk about my cases; she has a hard time with me talking about the BAU at all. She enjoys JJ and Garcia's company, but hates my job. I thought living together would make things easier, and it has in some ways, but at least once a month we still argue about the amount of traveling I have to do." Derek said.

He stopped walking and sat on a bench. Emily sat next to him and Derek cleared his throat, "The bureau has offered me the position as head of the DC field office. It would be long hours, but no traveling. I think I'm going to take it."

Emily gingerly reached out and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Because you want to, or because Savannah wants you to?"

Derek turned to look at her, "I'm not sure it matters. It feels like the best option."

Emily pulled her hand away and smiled at him, "Well, for what it's worth, I think you'll do an excellent job heading a field office."

They stopped talking about their relationships after that, and instead talked about their cases since they could easily do that with each other. They wandered through the Central Park Zoo and a few museums and processed and analyzed their jobs.

They ended up at a casual pub for dinner, drinking beer and gorging on huge pastrami sandwiches. At one point Emily caught Derek grinning at her. "What?" she asked when she finished chewing.

"Nothing. It's just I always enjoyed watching you pound good food without reservation."

Emily laughed and took another bite of her sandwich.

After dinner, they walked back to the hotel and rode the elevator up to their floor together.

"What time is your flight tomorrow?" asked Derek.

"Ten o'clock in the morning. What about you?" asked Emily.

Derek looked at his watch and then at her. "It left about an hour ago. My things are actually being held down in the lobby."

Emily felt butterflies instantly take up residence in her stomach and her breath hitched. "Won't you be missed when you don't show up at home tonight?"

Derek shook his head as he stepped out of the elevator with her. "No. Savannah's friend is getting married next weekend. A group of them took off for Vegas this morning for her bachelorette party."

"Oh," said Emily quietly. They reached her hotel room. Looking back on it, she knew what was going to happen the second he told her he'd skipped his flight home. But in that moment she tried to regain some balance and tell herself that neither of them were those kind of people, the type who lied and cheated. She wasn't that kind of person, she told herself firmly.

"Well, this is my room," she said, turning to look at him with her back against the door. "Thanks for a great day. I'm so glad we got to catch up. I've missed you."

She moved to give him a friendly hug, but before she could, Derek raised one of his arms and placed his hand against her hotel room door, right near her head. He leaned forward a bit and she felt his breath on her face as he whispered, "Hey, Prentiss. You ever raided a mini bar in a hotel room?"

Emily blushed and looked down, not able to meet his eyes. "We can't do this, Derek. I'm married. You're as good as married. It's so wrong and it will end badly. So many people could get hurt and…" she looked up and met his eyes, "Last time we didn't have anything to lose, and this time we could lose everything. This isn't who we are."

Derek stared at her and didn't shift his position. "You're right," he said quietly. But his words didn't match his actions, because his head tipped forward and his lips brushed gently against hers.

And she was instantly lost at just that gentle touch. She felt his hand take the room keycard from hers and reach behind her to put it in the slot. There was a click and he turned the door handle and backed her into the hotel room, not increasing the pressure on her lips, but not releasing her either.

So wrong, so wrong, so wrong, was the mantra playing in her head, but she didn't stop him when he kicked the door closed and pushed her against the wall in her room. The pressure of his lips increased and his hands were on her hips, and her mouth opened of its own accord. And just like the last time, his tongue touched hers and she was flying and the world was tilting on its axis.

His hand moved to the buttons on her blouse and he released them slowly, one by one. She didn't stop him; she reached her hands under his shirt and reveled in the feel of his skin under her hands again. Each button he released was like a letting go, - of Brian, of Savannah, of their friends who would not approve of this at all. By the time her shirt was open and he reached his hands under the fabric and placed them on her ribs, it was just the two of them in that room, in that moment, with no thought of anyone else.

Emily felt his hands slide up, over her bra and to her shoulders, and push the fabric off. She moved her arms so her shirt fell to the floor and then reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and off him. His hands went around her back and his lips moved to her neck as he unhooked her bra and pulled it down and off her. Then their arms were around each other and they were kissing again.

He shifted his legs and his thigh pressed between her legs against her and she gasped and ground herself into the pressure. Her hands moved to slide in between them and she undid the button on his jeans and was about to pull down the zipper when the phone in Derek's back pocket rang and she was snapped back into reality.

"Damn it," Derek hissed as he removed his phone from his pocket and showed her the screen that said "Hotch" before answering.

Emily, feeling torn, confused, and breathless, pushed against his chest as he answered his phone with a "What's up, Hotch?"

Derek shook his head at her and kept her lightly pinned to the wall with his body. Whatever reality she'd come back into, he wasn't having any part of it yet.

"No, I decided to stay for the dinner tonight and missed my flight. I was going to catch a later one, or the train," she heard him say.

She looked away from his face at her left hand where it rested on his chest, and guilt washed over her when she saw her wedding ring on her finger and how it looked on her hand as her hand lay against his skin.

"Are you kidding me?" asked Derek with a sigh. "Okay, okay. Let me get my things together here and I'll head over to the precinct. I'll be there in about an hour and get things started and see you guys when you arrive."

He disconnected his phone and reached around Emily to place it on the dresser near them. "Case in New York, ironically," he murmured before meeting her eyes.

She stared at him, part of her wanting to run away and part of her wanting to kiss him again, to get back to that place where she wasn't thinking.

"Do you want to stop?" he asked.

Yes. That was her first thought and what she should have said. "I...I don't know," was what she actually whispered. "What does this even mean?"

He didn't answer her, but she saw it in his eyes. It meant everything and nothing at the same time. He had maybe forty-five minutes before he had to leave for work, and tomorrow she'd be back on the other side of the Atlantic. He wasn't going to leave Savannah and she wasn't going to leave Brian so they could start some sort of relationship that would never work when they lived on different continents. But it still meant something to both of them, that they could connect like this. It was a need, a very wrong need and something they shouldn't want, but they did. That story played out in their eyes and then his lips were on hers again and she gave in. Too easily. She gave in too easily and he wanted this too easily.

They were behaving terribly. They were good people doing a very wrong thing, but they were on the same trajectory together again and they didn't stop.

Derek turned and pulled her with him, walking backwards to the bed. His hand undid the button on her pants and released her zipper, and she kicked her shoes off before he pulled her pants and underwear down and off her. His hands blazed a trail up her legs to her hips, but he didn't stand up. Instead he turned her and pushed on her gently so she sat on the edge of the bed and knelt between her legs.

She knew what was about to happen and braced herself for what it would feel like as his hands traveled down her legs and then back up again, placing her knees over his shoulders and pulling her to the edge of the bed. He moaned when his tongue first touched her and she bit her lip and then murmured, "Fuck."

He kissed her inner thigh and she could feel him smile against her skin and then his tongue was on her again and she didn't know what to do with the rest of her body. She tried staying upright, leaning back on her hands, but seeing his head between her legs made the room spin. She finally flopped backwards and closed her eyes and let herself be taken over by the sensations.

He would let her get right to the edge and then back off and move his tongue inside her. He did that over and over again and she didn't want him to stop, but she was slowly being driven into insanity and they just didn't have that much time. Finally she begged, "Please," and she reached for a pillow and pulled it over her mouth to muffle the screams that came out of her seconds later.

She laid there, catching her breath with the pillow over her face, not really believing any of what was going on. She felt him shift and move. The pillow was gently removed from her face and he was lifting her hips and shifting her backwards on the bed.

Derek kissed her then and she could taste herself on his lips and in his mouth, and then he pushed inside her and everything was spinning again. It was too much sensation and not enough at the same time; not enough because she knew it would soon be over and he would be gone. Her thighs felt heavy and she couldn't really move them, but it didn't matter. He moved them for her, using his strong arms to lift her legs higher around his waist. It wasn't long after that that she was tumbling over the edge again, but instead of a pillow, his mouth swallowed her screams and moans.

He linked his hands with hers after that, and a few seconds later, she felt him squeezing her fingers and moaning, his forehead pressed gently against hers as he did so.

She felt tears sting her eyes. They never said anything really, about their feelings or love, but if she stripped everything that had happened down to its basic skeleton, every part of the dance they just danced screamed love. And that brought her up short, and made her remember how wrong this all was.

Maybe he thought the same thing, or maybe he didn't. She couldn't be sure. A few moments later, when their breathing had slowed, he kissed her briefly and said he needed to rinse off in the shower and then go.

She nodded and he pulled away from her. She curled under the covers, her body still recovering from what had just occurred while her mind came back to itself. A fresh wave of guilt washed over her when the shower started, mixed with an insurmountable amount of confusion. How could anyone feel so wonderful and so terrible at the same time?

Derek's departure was not all that different than it was the last time he left her in a hotel room. He came to the bed, fully dressed. He kissed her lips instead of her forehead, but his words were identical. "Have a safe flight. I'll miss you. I'll talk to you soon."

But when he opened the door, he stopped and turned to face her again. "I'm not sorry about this," he whispered, before disappearing.

The next morning, instead of drinking water to wash away a hangover and convincing herself to forget about what happened, she drank alcohol on the entire flight home and tried to let that wash away her memories.

She took a cab home from the airport, and though it was only ten o'clock at night, she was grateful when she slightly stumbled her way into their flat and found Brian asleep in the bed. She washed her face and brushed her teeth and crawled in next to him. She felt his hand on her hip and he mumbled, "How was the conference?"

"Good," she responded. "I'm just exhausted."

Emily spent Sunday trying to reinvest herself in her marriage. She spent the day with Brian, and by that night, she'd done a decent job of putting Derek Morgan in a box in her heart that she didn't let her mind or feelings access. She went back to work on Monday, and they picked up their regular routines.

But the following Monday she received an email from the coordinator of the conference, addressed to both her and Morgan.

We've tabulated the surveys of the conference attendees and your presentation received overwhelmingly positive reviews. By far the best presentation at the conference! We're wondering if you both might be interested in doing the same presentation in Los Angeles the first weekend in October. Please let us know as soon as possible.

Emily stared at that email for a good long while before standing up and attending a meeting with some of her staff. When she returned to her office an hour later, there was an email from Derek.

I'm game if you are.

Her heart thrummed and her stomach rolled and she flushed at the double meaning of those words. She didn't answer right away. Instead she went about the paperwork she needed to complete, and in between she thought.

Finally, at the end of the day, before she left for home, she responded to Derek.

We're both complete assholes. I'll see you in October.