Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the TV series, Criminal Minds.

Full Circle
Part 2

By N. J. Borba

Derek sat inside the cozy café, nervously drumming his fingers on the laminated-wood table. He stared out the window. The Seattle sky looked gray and morose, kind of like he felt at the moment. An emerald green awning kept most of the light rain from hitting the clear glass. He took a cautious sip of his hot coffee and watched the bustling Saturday morning street crowd as he waited for some sign of her. The weather didn't seem to slow people down. They were dressed in sweaters and jackets, whereas mid-April in Virginia the weather was already turning warm enough for t-shirts. Morgan spotted her across the street and watched as she nimbly side-stepped a curb, escaping the wet rush of rainwater that traversed the street gutter. His eyes never left her as she entered the coffee shop, glanced around and caught sight of him by the window.

"Can I sit?" Emily asked as she approached the table, being overly careful in how she dealt with him.

He nodded and pushed a cardboard cup toward her as she settled into the metal chair across from him. "I hope you still like your coffee black with sugar?"

"I do," she answered, warming her chilled hands against the paper cup. "Thank you." Silence engulfed them for a moment after that as they watched the rain fall for a short time. Neither one of them was sure what to say. But, knowing he'd been the one to call her, Emily decided to make the second move. "Derek, I'm sorry," she began with an apology, a rather pitiful one considering the size of her mistake. But a genuine one nonetheless. "I really did want to tell..."

"When?" he stopped her, shaking his head in a doubtful manner. "Maybe when she turned eighteen? Graduated from high school? Or college? Maybe just before she was about to get married and realized she wanted her dad to walk her down the aisle?"

"Derek, I was confused and..."

He scoffed, again halting her words. "You've been confused for three years? I'm really not in the mood to listen to you make excuses." Morgan had spent the night at a hotel trying to sort through his scattered emotions. He'd finally managed to get a few hours of sleep and had hoped the morning would shine a more relaxed light on the situation. But seeing Emily again, and remembering the face of his daughter, it all made the anger well up inside him for a second time. "I have some questions for you and I just want some simple answers."

She let out a long breath, trying to let go of her frustration at the same time. Emily realized she really had no one to blame but herself for his irritation. "Okay."

Morgan fiddled with the protective cup-sleeve on his coffee as he looked her in the eye. "What's my daughter's name?"

Emily felt the weight of his sorrow crash down on her in those few words. But a smile spread across her face as she thought about the life they'd created together that night. Whatever pain she'd caused him and herself with that act, Emily didn't regret the result of her actions. "It's Elizabeth, but I call her Beth," she finally revealed. "Her middle name is Francesca. I named her after our mothers."

"Beth," he wore a bittersweet smile as he spoke her name for the first time. Normally that was something a father had a hand in knowing from the start, even to help pick out names. He was touched by her middle name, but Derek felt hurt again as he realized how much he'd missed. "Is her last name Stewart as well?"

"Yes."

"So, you are married. He adopted her?"

She could tell the answer to that question worried him more than any other. "No," Emily shook her head and traced invisible patterns on the table with one finger. "I'm not married. Stewart was my great-grandmother's maiden name. I had mine legally changed when I left the bureau. My parents used a few connections to help me keep it all as quiet as possible since I figured Garcia would get snoopy."

He chuckled softly, though it was not a pleased noise. "Yeah, your parents were very tight lipped every time I tried to contact them. I guess the family that lies for one another sticks together," Derek quipped. "It took Garcia and I three years of searching every Emily that was somehow connected to law enforcement in the US. We even searched some overseas organizations. It was really just a hunt and peck method, but I figured you'd stick with some sort of crime prevention work. So, private detective's license, huh?"

Emily shrugged and sipped her coffee, trying not to be upset by his comment about her and her parents lying for one another. She'd always hated the politics her family had to deal with in their line of work. And now she found she'd done similar things by lying to Derek. She'd hurt him; torn his family apart. She wasn't proud of it. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Emily tried to focus on his question instead. "I wanted a flexible job, so I could be with Beth as much as possible. I also wanted something that would be low risk. I don't even own a gun. Mostly I get hired by husbands who think their wives are cheating on them, or vise versa. I usually just have to do some surveillance, take a few photos and that's it. And I find a lot of lost pets, too. People really do love their dogs and are willing to pay a lot to get them back."

Realizing he'd gotten off track, Derek's head suddenly became bombarded with a slew of other questions that he was dying to put answers to. "How old is Beth? When is her birthday?" They came out in just about as hurried motion as they were forming in his mind. "How much did she weigh when she was born? What was her first word? When did she start walking?" It pained him to realize he'd missed out on so many firsts in his daughter's life.

"Um," she took a quick breath before diving into those answers. "She was born early on the morning of January 3rd. So, she's just a little over twenty-seven months old now." Emily's face lit up as she recalled that morning; the happiest moment of her life. She glanced over at Derek and saw the look of longing on his face. "Bethy weighed seven pounds, five ounces. She was twenty inches long with a shock of dark hair right from the start." Emily looked him in the eye. "She looked so much like you those first six months. Well, aside from being really pale complexioned."

"When I saw her yesterday, I thought she looked a lot like my mom," Derek recalled.

Emily nodded. "I know, I've seen that too. Guess I picked the right middle name for her."

"Mom's going to be over the moon when she finds out she has a grandbaby."

She smiled, almost thinking they were finally having a civilized moment. But she caught the way his eyes darkened again a few seconds later, probably thinking about having to tell his mother the good news two years past her granddaughter's birth. Emily hated to see him so upset, she hated even more knowing that it was because of her that he felt that way. "Her first word was, duck; as in the ones that swim and quack," she continued. "Second was mama, and third I think was probably shoe. Beth loves to get into my closet and play with all the shoes." Emily chuckled. "She actually didn't start walking until just after her first birthday. I think because she was so good at crawling and could get around really fast that way. She likes to move as fast as possible. Even now she doesn't walk much. It's usually a full on run. I can't even tell you the number of cuts and bruises I've kissed just this past week."

"I want to see her," Derek spoke, abrupt and to the point. As he listened to her go on, all the stories and memories she had of their daughter, he was struck by an almost uncontrollable urge to see the child. He wanted those memories too. He needed to make up for lost time. "I had a turn-around flight scheduled for yesterday, but I changed that. Now I have today and tomorrow before I have to be back at Quantico. And I want to see my daughter." It wasn't so much a question, as a demand being made.

Emily had been expecting that request, actually she'd been hoping for it. "My neighbor, Silvia, is watching her right now because of this," she waved her hand between them to indicate their meeting. "But, I always take Beth to the park after her nap on Saturdays. She loves to feed the ducks, hence her first word. I've been taking her there since she was three months old." Emily grabbed a napkin and fished through her purse for a pen. "You can meet us there at about 2:30 this afternoon." She wrote down the address and slid it across the table to him.

"I'll be there," Derek spoke with promise in his tone. He stood up and grabbed his coffee.

"Derek, wait," Emily jumped up and stopped him from leaving right away. She placed the pen back into her purse and pulled out a medium sized envelope. "These are just a few of the..." she held the item out to him. "Well, I always meant to send them but I... I'd like you to have them now."

He snatched the envelope from her hand and turned, walking away without another word.

xxx

A half hour later the rain had slowed to an even lighter drizzle, just a few drops here and there. Morgan sat on a bench along the shore of Lake Washington and could see a cloud-break in the distance; a little sunshine trying to peek out. He was early to the park, by about three and a half hours. But he really had nowhere else to go, nothing to be done but wait for a chance to see his little girl again. And there was no way he was going to miss that meeting. Derek pulled his jacket tighter and zipped it as a gust of wind blew off the water and sent an icy chill straight through his bones. Even with sun on the horizon it was still plenty cold.

Something made a rustling sound in his jacket and Derek remembered the envelope Emily had given him at the coffee house. He pulled it free and pried it open with his left index finger. A photo spilled out and drifted on the breeze to land at his feet. Derek reached down and picked it up. Then he stared at the baby knowing exactly who she was; his little girl. Beth was probably no more than a few months old in the picture, eyes closed and cloth covered hands resting against her chubby cheeks. Emily had been right, the child in the photo looked a lot like him.

Suddenly curious, he rummaged through the envelope and found other snapshots of his little girl at various stages. There was one of her standing up and holding on to Emily's fingers, looking like she was taking those first few tentative steps. Another picture showed her with chocolate cake smeared across her face. He recognized Emily's mother in the background and a man who was surely her father. The last picture was his favorite of the bunch. Someone had obviously snuck up on the sleeping duo. Beth was laying on Emily's chest, her face turned toward the camera, eyes closed. They both looked so peacefully content.

Morgan put the pictures back and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He read the letter addressed to him:

Derek,

I think this is probably my twelfth attempt to write you since I found out I was pregnant. The other letters all danced around that issue until the very end, but I'll just say it up front here. It's your baby. Of course, I'm afraid even this note is going to end up in the trash with all the others because I'm too much of a coward to tell you the truth. But something happened just now that prompted me to try again.

I felt our baby girl kick tonight. It's a girl, by the way. And by the strength of those kicks she'll either be a ballet dancer or an NFL running-back. I felt the first kicks about a month ago and now, every time it happens, the first thing I want to do is find you so you can feel it too. I want to put your hand there on my belly and... And then I realize you're clear across the country and probably curled up in bed with your wife.

I hate that I want you here so bad. I know you're happy in the life you chose and I still feel guilty for what I did that night. And yet, when I woke up that next morning and saw you sleeping beside me, I wanted you to wake up and ask me to stay. I wanted you to look me in the eye and realize that I was the one you wanted, not her. I was such a fool. But I still wanted to hear that word, just the one; stay.

I ran instead, because I feared the word would be... go.

He noticed that there was no signature after that, no real ending to the note. But the paper was wrinkled at the bottom, almost as if it had gotten wet somehow. Derek's best guess was that it had been teardrops which warped the paper. Emily's tears. He folded the note up and placed it back in the envelope with the pictures. "I really messed things up too, didn't I, Emily?" he whispered to the wind.

Derek watched the water lap against the shore as he continued to wait.

To Be Continued...