A/N: At the risk of clogging this up with a bloated author's note, I received several questions regarding romantic pairing after the last chapter, so I thought I'd address it here rather than respond privately this time in case others may be wondering the same thing. As always, thank you to ALL of you for your kind feedback! The short answer to the shipping question for this story is I don't know yet. I had set out to write a friendship fic only, then toyed with the idea of doing something more shippy briefly (because let's face it, a quarantine make-out session would be hot,) but the way things are shaping up I think M/P are going to have other things on their minds. I hesitate to answer too specifically, because as my fellow writers can understand, stories sometimes have a tendency to write themselves, and what I end up writing often ends up fairly different from what I think I'm going to write. I can say that I don't think shippers will be disappointed, but unfortunately the quarantine sex may have to wait for a different fic! Come to think of it, maybe someone out there wants to take the challenge?

Finally, just a heads up that I have a packed week coming up, so the next update might be less quick than usual. Don't worry! I won't forget!

Consciousness crashed into him in an explosion of white: white walls, white limbs tangling with his, restricting his movements. Muscles tensing automatically for a fight, Derek had already been pulled to his feet before he was able to take in his surroundings and remember their significance. The panic that rose up in him had as much to do with the sinking feeling that he was forgetting something extremely important as it did with the unattended assault.

Emily. That was it. The panic swelled to a momentary crescendo until he managed to catch a glimpse of his still-sleeping partner as he was dragged out the door, dark hair spread out beside the spot where his head had been resting just moments before. Still fighting off the last remnants of sleep-related stupor, Morgan found himself imagining in a crazy moment of non-sequitur that same hair brushing against his cheek as he slept.

He was already in the hallway by the time he came fully back to himself, surrounded on all sides by Suits who guided him quickly and, if he was honest with himself, much too roughly for any civil servant, back in the direction from which they had originally been led.

So, he thought. It's just me they want. For now.

Bolstered by this knowledge, he decided against putting up too much of an argument and followed the Suits more or less willingly. He could handle this, and Emily would be relatively safe back in the quarantine room. She wouldn't like it, he knew, but he was more than willing to stay here getting pushed around by some geeks in space costumes if it decreased his chances of getting her sick.

They retraced their previous route for a while, then eventually diverged from it by bypassing a turn and heading instead through a pair of heavy-duty double doors, beyond which the doors lining the hallway became much fewer and spaced farther apart. They entered the first one on the right, and Derek immediately felt his senses go on alert when he got inside.

He had been expecting more blood tests. Instead, the room in which he found himself was several times larger than the small lab where he and Prentiss had originally had samples taken. It was also cold. Not chilly from a draft contained within a concrete room, but frigid. Morgan could see faint wisps of white with each of his exhalations. He curled his toes to try to break contact with the freezing ground beneath him and studied his new surroundings warily.

The walls were, as always, a monochromatic white, but this time one of them was divided by a long, darkened window that spanned most of its length. A one-way mirror, he guessed, and couldn't help the uneasiness that came over him when his mind inevitably leaped to the question of who exactly was on the other side.

The room was largely empty save for some bare stainless steel trays lining one wall and a large monitor mounted on a cart in one corner. Attached to the monitor was an ominous looking black tube coiled menacingly at its base. What alarmed him, though, was that instead of chairs, he saw only a metal surgical bed in the centre of the room. A thin, white sheet was draped over it, but there was no additional padding.

And, there were reinforced nylon straps attached along the sides. Morgan backed away marginally, eyeing the Suits for any forewarning of menace.

"Sit." Came the muffled voice. Morgan hesitated for a moment before heading cautiously to the bed, taking a seat on the side but never breaking his view of the Suits. Sit. Fine, he could do that. As long as they don't ask me to lie down, he thought. Something definitely felt off about this room.

Still, the Suits made no indication of being interested in any sort of confrontation. Two of them stood a good distance away, their stances relaxed and non-threatening, while another one brought over the familiar blood collection tray and set it next to him on the bed. Still on high alert, Derek divided his attention between them. He watched the tourniquet being applied and his arm being prepared, then looked across towards the other two. It was his first mistake.

He felt the needle pierce his skin, then the tourniquet being removed. Surprised, he looked back to the suit directly in front of him.

"Alread—" But this wasn't a blood test. His eyes widened in alarm as he felt the cold fluid rush into his vein, but he managed nothing else.

Everything went black.


Emily started awake the minute she heard the door click shut. Shivering, she kept her eyes closed and willed herself to forget it and go back to sleep while another part of her brain nagged at her. There was something horribly ominous about that sound; what was it?

Another surge of adrenaline had her eyes flying open and her head pounding at her sudden jerk upright. Her hand flew out almost of its own accord in front of her on the bed to come into contact with only empty space. Morgan.

"Morgan?" She fought dizziness and the fog that threatened to descend over her eyes as she vaulted to stand, the blood rushing from her head all at once. Placing a palm to the wall briefly for support, she lurched forward to the door, jerking it open and trying to quell her panic when she found the anteroom empty. Knowing it would be useless, Emily pulled hard on the handle of the outer door anyway and couldn't help the surge of hopelessness she felt at confirming that it was, indeed, still locked.

Overcome by the need to be where she had last seen him, Emily rushed back into the room, checking the bed compulsively as if his absence had been simply a trick of her tired mind. Finding the room still deserted, she ran to the open door of the bathroom.

"Morgan?" Nothing.

Making her way dazedly back across the room to sit on the edge of the empty cot, she was horrified to find herself losing the battle to keep her head above the ever-rising tide of despair that was now threatening to sink her. Suddenly realizing how intensely her hands were shaking, she gripped the edge of the cot until her knuckles were as white as the rest of her surroundings, attempting to physically anchor herself against outright panic.

It wasn't enough, though. Images swirled up unbidden from behind her eyes, and Emily fought desperately to moderate her breathing which had begun to feel more suffocated by the minute.

They had been separated after all. She would stay here until it was all over, one way or another, and she wouldn't find out what had happened to him, and if he was okay, until she was released. Maybe it would be her team who would fill her in on the details. And maybe her partner wouldn't be there getting filled in beside her.

Or. He was already sick. They had taken him away in the middle of the night because he had begun showing signs (did he know? Had he gone willingly to protect her?) and were trying to treat him now. He would be alone, he would be thinking about his family, and he would be scared of never seeing them again because they both knew how this thing could end.

Or. It was already too late. Emily's stomach lurched and churned angrily as her thought process came to a screeching halt, unable to carry the idea any further.

And—she felt her eyes sting and blur and the breath being squeezed from her chest—and she hadn't been there to protect him.

Honoré de Balzac once said, 'Most people of action are inclined to fatalism, and most of thought believe in providence.' Tell me, Emily Prentiss, which do you think you're going to be?

Ian Doyle had known the answer to that question as well as she had, but he had been wrong about one thing. Because what he could not have possibly understood, being who he was, was that the acceptance of her own seemingly inevitable outcome had been a secondary consideration. In actual fact, Emily had never been a fatalist. She had learned early that almost any outcome could be changed with the keen enough application of intellect, tact, and sometimes good old-fashioned kicking-and-screaming force of will. It was what had made her a good covert operative, what now made her a good agent, and what had made her a pain in the ass of every supervisor she had ever had.

You took the only thing that mattered to me, so I'm gonna take the only thing that matters to you: your life."

The words had chilled her, but it was in that moment that she knew that she had already won because he had gotten it all wrong. No, fatalism had had nothing to do with it because her life wasn't anywhere near the only thing that mattered to her anymore. Instead, her actions had been driven by the conviction that through them she had the opportunity to save something that was infinitely more worth fighting for.

Emily set her jaw and decisively blinked back the threatening wet sting in her eyes. The possibility of action was limited here in a cold, locked quarantine room, but she knew it was either keep fighting or lose herself to panic. So, calmer now, she began to do the only thing that still made sense to her.

She started building a profile.


It was cold.

Derek tried to roll over and pull the covers back over him but found it difficult to move. It took enormous effort to pry his eyes open, and he squeezed them shut almost immediately after succeeding when he found himself staring straight into the fluorescent light above him. It made his head pound. His throat ached, and it was cold. Where the hell was he?

He made a second attempt to change position and this time managed to prop himself onto one elbow. Blinking now that the light was out of his eyes, he found himself surrounded by white. White walls, white sheet, white Suits moving silently around the hard surface on which he found himself.

Oh. "Emily—" he began, his voice a rough croak, but lost his train of thought when he began to nod off again. He lowered himself onto the cold surface.

It could have been seconds or hours later when he awoke again, more coherent now but still somehow unable to make his muscles follow his will. This time, he remembered exactly where he was, and a sense of dread was not far behind the realization. What did they do to me? He wondered, trying to take stock of his body. His throat still ached like crazy, but aside from the overwhelming tiredness that seemed to turn his limbs into jelly, nothing else seemed obviously wrong with him.

He could barely fight back when he was lifted hastily to his feet and dragged out of the room and back down the hallway, only kept his eyes on the ground in front of him and focused all his energy on keeping his feet beneath him, his body upright.

Relief flooded him at the sight of the familiar green light when they stopped deposit him into the anteroom, and Morgan kicked himself mentally because since when did a locked quarantine room feel like home? Now standing on his own, Derek had to steady himself as the outer door clicked decisively shut behind him before he advanced to open to inner door.

No sooner had he touched the handle than the door flew open. Prentiss stood tensed for a fight, fists clenched at her sides, eyes wide and swimming with both anguish and fury. A strangled noise escaped the back of her throat, and suddenly she was flush against him, both arms thrown tightly around his neck, dark hair tickling his cheek. He lifted an arm slowly to her back to return the embrace and couldn't help but notice that her entire body was trembling. Impossible. Emily Prentiss couldn't be crying, could she? He nearly went in for a tease, but she she stepped back then, eyes searching but relatively dry, and the questions started.

"Are you okay? What happened? Where'd you go?" Derek's body swayed somewhat at the sudden lack of support, and she must have noticed because she was reaching for him again, supporting his body against hers and leading him into the room to sit down on the cot.

"I'm fine. I'm fine, Prentiss." Still, she hovered even after he was safely seated on the cot. Already he felt some of his strength returning, some of the tired haziness lifting. "Maybe you shouldn't be so close."

She ignored him. "What happened? Derek, what'd they do?"

Derek shook his head. "I don't know. I was knocked out—" he tried to disregard the sudden hitch in her breath and continued filling her in on what he remembered. When he was finished, they were silent for a while, trying to absorb the events of the morning (at least, he assumed it was morning.)

Emily spoke first. "Morgan," her breath quickened; the conclusion she had reached during his absence still alarming in its implications, "this isn't the CDC, is it?"

He let out a humourless laugh and shook his head again. He could tell it wasn't really a question; he wasn't sure when exactly he had come to the same conclusion, but hearing it articulated for the first time only drove home its truthfulness.

They exchanged a look. Feeling much better now, if still a bit tired, Derek finally had the chance to take in his partner's appearance.

She looked a wreck. A surge of affection warmed him when he noticed her still-trembling hands, and he had the strongest urge to still them with his own. Her hair was a mess, her eyes wide and shining, her cheeks and forehead still flushed.

Wait.

the faint pink that coloured her cheeks…

the blush that covered her from face to chest…

He had known her for almost seven years, during which he had seen her face down, fight with, even flirt with some of the most terrifying minds in the country. He had seen her hold her ground in front of Strauss and give as good as she got when it came to his own sometimes merciless teasing. She was his friend, his partner… He had shared some of his best moments with her, and some of his worst. And he knew this: Emily Prentiss did not blush.

He was reaching for her before he knew what he was doing. He felt his heart leap into his already aching throat, swallowing hard against the painful lump.

"Emily," his voice came out hoarse and breathless with horror. "Do you have a fever?"