Title: Elysium
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Romance/Angst
Summary: They thought that it was only going to be one night. They were wrong. An unexpected pregnancy leads Emily and Derek to reevaluate their lives.
Author's Note: Bidding has started for thepurpledove auction. Link can be found on my profile page. It's for a good cause, so please consider. Thank-you.
Chapter Eight
'Why didn't you tell me Emily was transferring out of the BAU?' Garcia's words hit him with a sledgehammer that broke through his mid-afternoon reverie with more efficiency than any amount of caffeine ever could.
'What are you talking about, baby girl?' he asked, trying to sound casual about the whole thing, but miserably failing. Emily put in for a transfer without telling him?
'After the last debacle with Strauss, I've been keeping tabs to make sure none of the team has any unexpected career changes.' She tapped a few keys, and brought up a scanned image of a completed transfer request. Emily's transfer request, he corrected himself – that was definitely her signature in the bottom right hand corner. 'I just found this. You didn't know anything about this, do you?' She looked somewhat guilty for revealing what had apparently been a secret – a secret that he would have rather found out another way.
'When does the transfer go through?'
'It's already gone through.' Garcia's tone was soft, almost apologetic. 'We've been busy, and the Bureau tends to frown when I flag things that aren't pertinent to cases, and…I missed it.' Her eyes brightened. 'The good news is, she doesn't actually transfer for a couple of months. Red tape saves the day, for once.' She gave a soft laugh that was anything but mirthful.
For so long now, things had been running smoothly. After Elle, after Gideon, things had been rough, but they had persevered together, coming out of it stronger. This wasn't the way things were supposed to go. They were not supposed to be splitting up the team for something like this. It just seemed too…surreal. And not in a good way. Sometimes he felt like they'd be like this forever; his own stint as Unit Chief had been jarring, at best. The changes this would bring…
He couldn't let this happen.
Giving Garcia a grimace, he took his leave, determined to find Emily and ask her why? Why had she done this? More importantly, why had she done it without even consulting him? He'd thought that maybe his status as her child's father would have warranted a heads-up, at the very least. Just a "Hey, Morgan, sonogram on Thursday, don't forget. By the way, I'm leaving the BAU. Have a nice weekend."
He couldn't quite judge his own emotional state. Angry? Upset? Confused? All of the above?
Morgan found Emily at her desk, doing paperwork, as though nothing was wrong. As though she hadn't made one of the biggest decisions of her life. Without him. 'Can we talk?' he asked, trying not to let his emotion seep out into his words, but he'd never really been that good at hiding his feelings. The look on her face told him that she'd already figured out why he was there.
She looked around, mouth open slightly. 'Not here,' she said eventually, leading him out of the bullpen and down the hallway. It wasn't the most isolated of places she could have chosen, but it was far better than having a domestic in front of the rest of the BAU.
'Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?' he asked, noting that already, her eyes were wet with tears.
She shook her head. 'I didn't exactly choose to leave,' she revealed. 'Strauss gave me an ultimatum. Either I leave the BAU, or we both leave the FBI – permanently.' Strauss' involvement in this was no surprise, but he shelved that bit of knowledge for later. Right now, his focus was Emily.
'So you decided not to tell me?' he said, exasperated. 'What was the plan, that I find out when I came into work one day and your desk was empty? I don't need you making decisions about my life, Emily.'
Emily gave a sigh. 'Look, Derek, I know you're upset, but I'm pretty sure if you'd confronted Strauss then we'd both be out of a job. I did what I had to do.'
'Why do you have such a martyr complex?' he demanded, his voice rising. It's wasn't his preferred reaction, but she was being so damn stubborn that it was hard not to get angry.
'Oh, and you don't?' she retorted, her tone just as heated. 'We both know for a fact that if it were you, you would have done exactly the same thing.'
There was a long pause, because really, he'd be lying if he'd said otherwise. He didn't tell her that, though, because deep down, he felt betrayed that she hadn't even told him before signing the form. He would have been there for her, even if it might have taken a while to accept the fact that she wasn't going to say to that offer.
He'd thought that they were growing closer. Now, he wasn't so sure.
'Derek…' Emily choked back a sob. 'I'm sorry. I didn't…' She paused. 'I wanted to tell you.'
'You should have,' he told her bluntly. 'You think this doesn't affect me? You don't have the right to make that decision for me. If I want to leave the FBI, that's my choice.'
She stared at him, and Morgan wondered if he'd said too much. 'I'm sorry.' He echoed her words. 'I just…let's talk about this later – I need to think.'
He walked off before she could say anything else, but talking was the last thing on his agenda. He stormed up the stairs to Hotch's office, and flung the door open without knocking. Hotch looked upwards, his brow furrowing.
'Are you really okay with this?' Morgan demanded. Hotch didn't ask for clarification – after all, he signed off on the transfer.
'Of course I'm not okay with it,' Hotch answered, in a voice that was a great deal calmer than Morgan's. 'Fraternization has consequences, Derek. You know that the Section Chief is well within her rights to do this.'
'I don't give a fuck what Strauss' rights are,' he thundered, immediately realizing that he'd gone too far. He gave himself to calm down, and Hotch, to his credit, did not interfere. He shook his head. 'Why her? Why not me? Emily has twice the Bureau experience that I do.'
'But not nearly as much experience in this Unit,' Hotch countered.
'You think that matters? If Gideon can rewrite the rulebook to let Reid in, then there's no reason that Emily can't stay. We can be objective.'
'Can you?' Hotch asked, an eyebrow raised.
'Yes.' Morgan answered almost instantly, trying to ignore the "No" that echoed in his mind. When he considered the possibility of Emily in danger, his heart started beating just that little bit faster. If it were to happen for real… 'No,' he admitted. 'It's just…' He shook his head. 'This is fucked up, Hotch.'
Hotch grimaced, not disagreeing. 'I've started looking through applications. The moment anyone hears a rumor that there's even a possibility of a position opening in the BAU, they all come flooding in.' He gave Morgan a look. 'I'd like your opinion on some of them, if you have the time.'
'Yeah, I guess,' Morgan said, without much enthusiasm. He still wasn't willing to let go of Emily, let alone start looking at who would be able to fill her position.
'She's not being kicked to the curb, Derek,' Hotch said, apparently reading Morgan's reluctance. 'It's a good position – she'll have more opportunities for advancement than she would in the BAU.'
That doesn't make it okay, Morgan thought to himself, but he didn't say anything.
Are you upset for her, or are you upset for you?
Morgan wasn't quite sure how to answer that one.
…
He looked for Emily, so he could make things right, but she wasn't anywhere in the bullpen, nor was she with JJ or Garcia. 'She said she was leaving early,' JJ said with a shrug. 'She looked kind of upset, though – is everything okay?'
It wasn't his place to tell JJ, so he didn't, instead muttering something about nausea, which, as far as he was aware, wasn't entirely untrue. The morning sickness had been a lot worse over the last few days, though now he wondered whether part of that was stress as well.
You're a jerk, Derek, he told himself.
'You're still ready for tonight?' Reid asked, as Morgan returned to the bullpen. Confusion swept across Morgan's mind. Tonight?
Oh.
Cooking lessons.
They'd been postponed three times now, thanks to the workload, and Morgan was in half a mind to do so again, after the day's revelation, but he didn't. Maybe he didn't need to think about things. Maybe he needed to take his mind off things. Calm down a bit.
'Sure,' he said.
'You have the list I gave you?' Reid asked, eying him suspiciously. If he knew anything about what was going on with Emily, he didn't say anything.
'Yeah.' Morgan nodded. The week earlier, Reid had accompanied him to the mall, where they'd made sure that they had all the right equipment. Apparently, good cookware was expensive.
Now, all he had to buy was the food – Reid apparently had some basic recipes in mind, none of which he'd divulged as yet.
'I'll see you at seven then,' Reid told him, returning to whatever had seized his attention on the computer screen. In spite of conflicting emotions, Morgan managed a grin. Reid had grown up significantly over the past six years. He was still a nerd – that would never change – but there was a refreshing self-confidence that had come from witness interviews and talking down unsubs.
Maybe they were all growing up.
Maybe growing up meant moving on, even if you didn't want to.
Morgan left the BAU at five, was home with his groceries by six, and paced until seven.
Reid arrived at two minutes past seven, with a black apron in his hand.
'No chef's hat?' Morgan queried, entirely unsurprised that Reid had a fact-filled answer to the question.
'Actually, while the double-breasted chef's jacket provides a practical purpose, the hat is a throwback to the 16th century when many professions had their own head-pieces. These days, though, it's often an indication or rank within a kitchen.'
'I love hanging with you man,' Morgan grinned. Reid's eyes lit up. 'Alright, so where do we start?'
In true Reid fashion, they started with theory.
'There are several main types of cooking,' Reid explaining, hands occupied with tying his apron – he was so skinny, that the cord wrapped right around to his front. 'Some suggest that if you can learn each method, then you can cook anything, but that's something of an oversimplification. It certainly helps, but by no means will it make you an executive chef. Fortunately, you don't really need that kind of skill to make simple, healthy meals.'
Morgan was semi-listening as Reid went over the basics of each method, but really, he was thinking about Emily. Reid stopped.
'Are you listening?'
Morgan almost felt like he was back in school.
'Yes.' A complete lie.
'Does grilling heat from above or below.'
Morgan stared at him. 'Come on, Reid.'
'You asked for my help, Morgan. I can't help you if you don't want to be helped.'
Morgan sighed. 'I'm sorry. I'm just distracted.'
'Emily's transferring, isn't she?'
There was a long pause. 'How the hell did you know?'
'Derek, I have an IQ of 187, and I'd have to be blind not to notice what's been going on around the office lately.'
'Oh. Right.' He sighed. 'I don't know what to do about this.'
Reid gave him an apologetic look. 'That's not something I can tell you, Morgan. Love might be a product of brain chemistry, but that doesn't make it easy. I don't think anyone can claim to fully understand how the human mind works. So maybe you'll just have to go with your heart.'
'Wait – love?' he asked, frowning. When had he ever said anything about love? Reid just stared at him.
'I am a profiler, too, remember?'
…
In the end, they didn't get a significant amount of cooking done. Morgan wasn't all that hungry, so he divided the food up into Tupperware containers, and threw it in the freezer.
'Thanks, Reid. I owe you one,' Morgan said. Reid gave him a smile.
'We can work on some more tomorrow night, if you want?'
'That'd be good.'
Reid seemed to sense the urgency in Morgan's voice, and left quickly. Morgan grabbed his wallet, cell and keys, and was out the door in a flash, barely stopping to say goodbye to Clooney.
He drove.
It was past nine o'clock, and he wasn't entirely sure whether Emily would still be awake, but this was important enough that he was going to wake her up anyway.
She answered the door in a tank-top and panties, blinking sleep from her eyes, and damned if she wasn't' the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life.
'We need to talk.'
'Derek, I…'
'I'm not going anywhere Emily – I need to get this out.'
She hesitated, but stepped backwards to let him inside. The door closed behind him with an echoing click.
'I just wanted to say I'm sorry…about this morning,' he said. 'I'm still not happy about it, but I over-reacted, and I said some things that I probably shouldn't have.'
Emily bit her lip. 'Why do you care so much?' she asked softly, and for a moment, he could see the pain, the anger, the sadness that was reflected in her eyes, and it hurt more than anything he had ever felt before. 'Why does it matter whether I'm in the BAU, or if I'm two floors down in Counterintelligence? I'm not trying to shut you out, Derek. I'm trying to make this work.'
The fact that she'd be working Counterintelligence was new, but he didn't process it, because there was only one thing running through his mind. Really, he should know better, but the only thought running through his mind was that he should kiss her. So he did. She was surprised at first, but after a split second, he felt her lips starting to reciprocate the gesture, opening slightly to allow a little more leeway.
'So am I,' he said, stepping back, just the slightest bit short of breath. Emily's eyes were wide in surprise, as if she'd never even considered the possibility that he'd want to be in this kind of relationship with her. 'I'd never really thought something like this could happen between us,' he admitted. 'But I respect you, and I like you a lot, and I think the only thing that was stopping me from trying was the job. I know that it will be much easier on our child if we were together, so…I want to try and make this work.' He passed her own words back to her, only now they meant so much more.
For a few seconds, she didn't speak, and he was half afraid that he was about to be rejected. After all, hadn't exactly been the nice guy today. 'Are you serious?' she asked, a little dumbfounded, but the tone of voice wasn't one of disgust. It was one of elation. She thumped him on the arm. 'You are such a dork.'
He blinked; it was not quite the answer he'd been expecting.
'Excuse me?'
'You're a dork,' she insisted. 'You come over all upset about not being told about my transfer, and then you decide to tell me that you want to start going steady? That is just…' She gesticulated her hands, frustrated. 'Dorky.'
He wasn't used to the level of light-heartedness in her voice, even if he had seen it sporadically. There wasn't an excessive amount of time for playful attitudes when there were serial killers on the loose.
Morgan raised an eyebrow. 'Is that a yes?'
She sighed. 'Yes. Yes, it's a yes. Even if it is kind of weird.'
He gave a grin at that, in spite of the otherwise somber circumstances. 'You take a step backwards to look at the lives we lead, and this is weird? Oh, Princess, we are just getting started.'
