Derek woke up on the cot and was surprised to find Emily sitting up in bed facing him, iPad in her lap, like she was waiting for him. The night before, he'd fallen asleep next to her in bed, but she'd had another nightmare. He waited for her to fall asleep again, and then he moved to the cot to give her more space on the bed.

He sat up and touched her knee, but before he could say anything, the iPad started talking.

"What happened around the holidays in 2009? Something that would have really upset me or made me think."

Derek shook the sleep from his head and sighed, "Hotch's wife, Haley, was murdered by a serial killer. We all listened to it happen over the radio. And not long after that was when you were in the car accident that gave you the scar on your arm. The prisoner you were transporting killed the detective who was driving and you were trapped in your seat. He wanted to kill you, too. Why do you ask?"

Emily blinked at him and shook her head sadly. Then she started typing again. "Did I seem different after that?"

Derek thought, "Yes, actually. In January of 2010. You seemed more relaxed and open. We started hanging out more after work, just as friends. But that spring was when you and I started..."

She held up her hand to stop him and she typed, "I really want to remember that part on my own if I can. I'm looking forward to that memory." She smiled at him.

Derek's heart skipped a beat in happiness. And he realized that she seemed very different this morning. Her demeanor was stronger, like she'd spent the last hours of her sleep making a decision. "Why are you asking about this? Did you remember something?"

Emily nodded and typed. "I woke up early and I started typing everything about Doyle and Declan. I wanted it all written out because I need to see a therapist. I know that, and having the words there for when I can't talk well will be helpful. And I want you to know. Do you know? Did I ever tell you?"

He shook his head, "Not details. And you didn't tell details to Easter either in your original report. We saw that report. There were a lot of holes, Emily."

"Yes," she said. Then she started typing again. He waited for over a minute before the iPad speaker came on. "When I started typing, a memory came to me. I'd already written it all out before, in my journal. I was sitting on a couch, and there was a small Christmas tree on the table next to me. I remember when I was done - I think it was over several days, but that part is a little fuzzy - I remember I took the journal to a safety deposit box. I remember feeling relieved that I'd written it all, and I didn't want to get rid of it, but I didn't want it in my house. I can see the date on the form at the bank. It was December 29, 2009. First Citizens Bank, the main branch in DC. Do you think it's still there?"

Derek was surprised by the confession, by the memory, by the fact that she wanted him to know everything. She never talked about Doyle, not since that first night she came back from London. Then again, it's not like he was sitting there swapping stories with her about Carl Buford either. They both kept the ghosts in their closets pretty close to the vest. The difference was, Carl Buford seemed like a very distant ghost he could barely see anymore, and Doyle was right there in front of her face now.

He smiled at Emily and patted her knee. "You pay for a safety deposit box there. You said it contained important papers, your birth certificate, things like that. The journal could still be in there."

Derek grabbed his phone and called JJ, told her where the key and documentation for the safety deposit box were in their house, asked her to work her charm and use her badge to get into that box and bring back anything that looked like a journal to the hospital. Knowing JJ, she'd probably be there within a couple of hours.

"We'll just see," he said to Emily when he disconnected the call.

"Will she rea?" asked Emily.

"Will JJ read it? No, Emily. She'd never do that unless you told her she could."

Emily nodded like she thought that was probably the answer, but she just wanted to be sure. She squeezed his hand where it was resting on her knee and then typed, "It scares me, the idea of you or anyone knowing. But I know it will help me." Then she smiled and typed. "I'm sick of hospital food. Can your mom bring Bennington's for breakfast?"

Derek laughed in happiness and shock at her memory of the little cafe by their brownstone. "Em! Bennington's didn't open until this past summer."

She gave him a wide-eyed look, but shrugged her shoulders. "Like soccer," she said.

And Derek understood that the name had just come to her, but she didn't have a context for it yet. He grinned. It was still progress. "Yes, I'll have my mom pick up Bennington's on her way in. It will be nice to see you scarfing down one of their loaded omelets again."

The nurse came in at the moment with Emily's pain medication. Emily looked in the pill cup in confusion. "It's a stool softener," said the nurse. "The pain meds can really do a number on you in that department. I think your days here with us are numbered, Emily. But Dr. Quon wants to make sure all your systems are functioning first. Dr. Quon will be by around noon. You have speech therapy at 9:00 and physical therapy at 2:00, and a therapist that works with people with traumatic brain injuries will be by around 4:00 to talk to you."

After Emily took the pills and the nurse left, Derek said, "Sounds like a full day."

Emily looked at him and laughed. Then she typed. "Shit and go home. Make it a spinach omelet."

Derek joined her in laughter, feeling so completely relieved and happy that they would be going home soon. That each day she showed a little more of the Emily he knew. It actually made his head hurt to think about all the conflicting thoughts and emotions that must be swirling around in her head, or how she was managing to make sense of them. When she'd first woken up and he realized she didn't remember anything, he wasn't sure she would be comfortable coming home with him when she was released, but it seemed like she didn't have any reservations.

Fran came with breakfast and visited for a bit. When Derek told her that Emily might be coming home soon, she looked at Emily and patted her hand. "I'll stay until you don't want me there anymore, just to help. Is that OK?" And Emily nodded happily. Fran left after breakfast to go back to the house, a laundry list of things she thought she could do to make the house more accessible and ready for Emily.

Speech therapy was exceedingly better than the day before, so much so that the speech therapist kept shaking her head in surprise. At one point she looked at Derek in amazement and he said, "Once she puts her mind to something, she's quite a force to be reckoned with," which made Emily grin. She was managing more articulate sounds, and he thought maybe it wouldn't be too long until she said his name after all. She didn't know how much he wanted to hear it.

JJ showed up not long after that with a thick envelope. She looked very curious, but she didn't ask questions. She handed the envelope to Emily and gave her a quick hug and said she needed to get to work, but she'd come back that evening. As JJ was standing to walk out the door, Emily snatched up her hand.

"Thank you for being my frien," said Emily.

JJ opened her eyes wide at the clarity of the long sentence, and also in an effort to not cry, Derek thought. "Of course, Emily. Always." Then she hugged Emily again and said with a laugh, "You just sounded the way you do after a long night hanging out at one of our houses drinking wine. Pretty impressive, my friend."

Emily laughed, and JJ patted her shoulder, smiling hugely before she left the room. Not for the first time Derek thought that all of their friends only wanted Emily back; that she had no memories of them was not as big of a deal as they initially thought. Their memories were strong enough to carry Emily through this. He felt the same way.

Emily opened the envelope and pulled out the journal. She beckoned Derek to the bed and he sat on the edge. She used the side of her right hand to hold it in place and opened the cover. The first pages were dated 2002, before Doyle. She looked at Derek and said, "Inerpol."

"You wrote about when you worked for Interpol?"

"Yes." Then she flipped through the pages and found what she was looking for - an entry dated December 26, 2009. She nodded in satisfaction that her memory was correct and closed the cover. She handed the journal to Derek, a determined but worried look on her face.

"Should I start from the beginning?" he asked.

"You know abou Inerpol?"

Derek shook his head. "No, you never talked about it with me."

Emily reached for the iPad, and then stopped herself. She looked right at him and managed her longest sentences yet, slowly, but well enough for him to understand. "I think very d...d...differen Emily than you know." She paused and thought, trying to move her mouth correctly. "Think Clye knew the BAU be-er for me."

She took journal back from him and opened it to the first page, and then handed it back. Derek felt her watching his face as he started reading. After awhile, Emily drifted off to sleep and Derek found himself intrigued and in a bit of shocked disbelief at the life Emily had lived with Interpol. It made the BAU look like child's play. Clyde's team was tasked with the most covert operations. Derek came to understand why dropping through a ceiling on a harness to talk to a man wired to blow didn't even phase her. She talked a lot about how she couldn't live this life and let anyone get close to her at the same time, that she didn't have that much space inside her. She both loved and hated what she was doing, but she got a high out of taking on the most difficult assignments. Derek read page after page and in the last entry before Doyle, she talked about how she was excited about the assignment, that she knew she was tough enough to pull it off and she was looking forward to taking Doyle down.

Derek looked up then and saw her still sleeping. He took a deep breath and flipped through a few blank pages. The entry on December 26, 2009 began, So much has happened in the past month that I feel like I'm missing out on a real life, and I want one before it's too late. Maybe if I write this all out, it will help.

And then she started in with Ian Doyle and the horrors she experienced with him, and her feelings about all of that and Declan. It was a heartbreaking twenty or so pages that made Derek wish he'd been the one to pull the trigger on Doyle. She'd written it with a felt-tipped pen, and throughout the pages there were dots of tear marks in the ink. He read it all and took it in. He didn't cry. What he really wanted to do was punch a wall. He understood fully for the first time why she had become so petrified at the idea of Doyle being out of prison that she'd behaved irrationally and run from them all instead of asking them for help; he understood the level of shame she felt she would have needed to get through in order to ask them for help, and she just couldn't do it.

He wished she'd told him all of this before, after she came back from her fake death, because it would have made that year very different. She probably would have never left for London. Their lives together could have begun that much sooner.

But he understood. He remembered being in that interrogation room in Chicago so many years ago and not being able to save himself because he couldn't get past the shame and talk about it all.

And he loved her even more than he had before, which he didn't think was possible, not because of all of the pages before, but because of the last two sentences. I just want a relationship and to feel love and love someone and it's very confusing because whenever I think about that, the only person I see is Morgan, which can't happen. But that's a story for a different journal.

He looked up and saw Emily awake, her eyes on him.

"OK?" she asked.

Derek huffed out a laugh and placed a hand on her cheek. "After reading about Interpol, I was a little scared of you."

Emily smiled. "No, really. OK?"

"Emily, of course it's okay. I'm sad for you and angry for you, and I love you more than ever. Do you remember everything you wrote about Doyle?"

She shook her head and grabbed the iPad. "I only remember that I wrote about it."

Derek turned the journal towards her and pointed to the last two sentences. "I told you, Em, we were a sure bet from the start. Even before we started."

Emily read the sentences and her eyebrows raised in surprise. Derek moved the journal to the side, and bent forward to brush a gentle kiss against her lips. "We're happy, Emily," he whispered. "I know you need to work through these things, but I think you need to give yourself credit for what you've already done that you don't remember. You got your relationship full of love with the person you thought you should have it with. Me. And you still have me."