Author Note – Wow, what a response to the last couple of chapters. Thank you all so much for your continued support. I must admit I have written more chapters, but was finding it hard going over them, not quite happy with them. So I decided to start posting earlier than I intended to. Your reviews have spurred me to go back and fix those chapters, the last two being the result. I'm grateful for all comments, please let me know what you think.

Second chances – chapter eight

It was Monday morning and Emily was running late for work. Hurrying out the front door, calling out a goodbye to Morgan as he dressed in the bedroom, she made her way to the underground station. After a short tube ride, she exited the Westminster station and walked quickly to the Interpol offices.

Taking the elevator to her floor, she ignored the strange glances from her colleagues, some double checking their watches. Emily was usually the first one in the office, and one of the last to leave. Smile plastered on her face, she couldn't bring herself to care what they thought or assumed. Stopping at the small kitchen, Emily made herself and her pregnant assistant a cup of tea; she couldn't keep her thoughts from drifting back to the reason she was running late. Emily had been brushing her teeth in the bathroom as Morgan stepped under the shower. Appreciating the view had led to her joining him. She chuckled as she remembered him turning around, smirk in place.

"You're going to be late Princess," Morgan had mumbled as he pulled her to him.

Her assistant Amy glanced up at Emily as she approached her desk; she was unable to hide her enthusiasm. "Please tell me some tall, dark and handsome put that smile on your face this morning." Emily's smile turned playful as she placed the tea in front of her assistant.

"Who says I didn't put a smile on his face first?" Emily told her as she went to open her office door. Amy followed, waddling behind, messages in hand.

"Oh, don't tease me," Amy said, rubbing her hand on her swollen stomach. "I need to live vicariously through others." Emily laughed at her while settling herself at her desk. Unlike many of her colleagues, Amy wasn't afraid to ask the boss about her personal life. She had a big heart, and had gone out her way to make Emily feel welcome. The rest of the team she worked with were lovely but some of them were too caught up in office politics.

Reeling from the events of the weekend, Emily decided to indulge her friend and her need for girl talk. "A friend flew in Friday to surprise me."

"Just a friend?" Amy questioned. "I need more details than that." She told Emily as she sat opposite her.

"Do I have any messages?" Emily countered, gesturing to the pieces of paper in Amy's hand. Amy sighed.

"Our Director, Mr Easter, called to remind you that the video conference is at half eleven and that you need to have all training requirements ready to present, as well as updates on all current cases. As you were running behind, I have compiled the training records for you to review and sent an email to all Unit Chiefs asking them to email you with the details of their cases. Now back to the reason you were running behind, who made you so smiley this morning?"

Emily couldn't help glancing at the photo on her desk. It had been taken on a night out, all seven members of the BAU team crammed in to a corner booth at a restaurant while a waiter took the photo. Morgan, who had been sitting next to her, had decided to tiggle her just as the flash went off making her laugh.

Amy noticed the look and plucked the photo of the desk, turning it to examine the people in it. Looking at her bosses' big smile in the photo, mirroring the one she now wore, Amy looked at the person who caused it. "Definitely tall, dark and handsome," she said placing the photo back where it belonged. "Please tell me those muscles are as good in the flesh."

"Better," Emily replied.

"Be still my heart," Amy gave a fake swoon, fanning herself with the message slips. "But I thought you said that was your old team," Amy said, gesturing to the photo.

"It is; nothing happened while we worked together, nothing really till this weekend," Emily suddenly felt the need to explain they were never unprofessional.

Amy smiled kindly at her bosses' worry. "I just think it's awfully romantic." Seeing Emily's blush, she decided to tease a bit more. "Apparently you're making up for lost time."

"Remind me to introduce you to my friend Penelope the next time she's on Skype," Emily said, an embarrassed chuckle escaping. Looking at her watch, her eyes bulged as she saw it was almost ten. "I better get on reviewing those files, was there another message for me?" She asked pointing to the other slip in Amy's hand.

"Only a baby shower invite from me." Amy passed her the invite. "I'll leave you to your paperwork; you don't need any more distractions."

"Thank you Amy." She said to Amy's retreating form. "Oh, could you look at my schedule this week? I wanted to see if there is anything that could be moved around so I can work from home for a day or maybe two." Amy looked over her shoulder and winked.

"I'll see what I can do."

Taking a sip of her tea, Emily opened to the top file on her desk.

Hours later, Emily sat back in her chair rubbing her temples lightly from the headache she felt forming there. It had been a long conference call which had mainly been focused on other field offices which hadn't been performing as well as her own. She'd had to listen to Easter ramble on at the other office chiefs about getting more from their teams, silently thanking Amy for the work she had done that morning. The London office had apparently improved enough since she started that Easter was happy to ignore her for the majority of the call after hearing her updates, for which Emily was grateful. She did enjoy her job, seemingly endless, mind numbing meetings aside.

Noticing it was just past six on her watch; Emily decided to call it a day, envisioning a hot bath followed by curling up on the sofa with Morgan. The foreign feeling of domesticity came over her, which was quickly replaced with a slight frown as she realised it would last only a week. They needed to talk, but they were putting it off preferring to concentrate on the new physical aspect of their relationship, having spent most of Sunday morning in bed before strolling around a nearby park in the afternoon.

Slipping her suit jacket on, Emily picked up her bag and case. Walking to the door, she double checked her office as she left. Stepping out into Amy's office, Emily was made aware of how much she would miss her assistant when she was on maternity leave. She was stifling a yawn while concentrating on the schedule, trying to find Emily more time to work from home.

"Amy, go home. You and the baby need to rest."

Amy looked up in relief at her boss. "I've managed to shift some things around. You have to be here for the meeting tomorrow morning with the teams, but after that you're able to work from home till Thursday afternoon, when you have the meeting with the Scotland Yard liaison. I've already sent the files you will need to your computer."

"Thank you. I have no idea what I would've done without you today."

"All I ask is that I hear all the details," Amy said as she gathered her things and turned her computer off. "Vicarious living," Amy told her, tapping her protruding stomach. Emily chuckled at her lightly, holding the door open.

"What am I going to do when you're on maternity leave?" Emily asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"Just give me a week with my replacement, and I'll sort it out." Emily wasn't as confident as her assistant. "Right, I'll see you in the morning. Enjoy your evening and your 'friend'."

"You too Amy," Emily ignored her teasing. "Goodnight," she called as they parted ways outside the main entrance.

A short while later, Emily walked through her front door, the feeling of domesticity overcame her again, as she heard Morgan in the kitchen. Putting her coat and bag on the rack, she tucked her briefcase under her desk. Walking into the kitchen, she found Morgan standing over the hob cooking dinner. Coming up behind him, she gently wrapped an arm around his waist, her hand slightly caressing his chest as she peered over his shoulder into the pot.

"What are you cooking? It smells good."

Morgan looked over his shoulder with a smile. "Hi," he said, giving her a quick kiss. "Just Bolognese, it's still got about an hour to simmer." Turning completely to her, he wrapped both arms around her.

"Hi," Emily whispered, kissing him. Morgan groaned when she pulled away. "I'm going to grab a bath before dinner. I've been sat in a meeting for hours, and feel a little stiff."

"Go and relax I'm gonna finish up here."

"Well, I was kind of hoping you would join me." She told him as she looked over her shoulder at him, walking out of the kitchen. As she continued down the hallway, she could hear his footsteps as he followed her.

A few hours later they were sat on the sofa watching a film. "This was a great surprise," Emily said sleepily as she snuggled into the blanket, wrapping it around her a bit tighter.

"What was? Dinner? That I can cook? We're not all challenged in the kitchen like you," he teased.

"I can cook, but I choose not to most of the time," she paused, trying to figure out how to continue. "Dinner was lovely, but I was talking about your visit."

"Well, we needed to have a conversation and I didn't want there to be three thousand, six hundred and seventy miles between us to have it."

"Three thousand, six hundred and seventy miles? Have you been talking to Doctor Reid?" Emily had meant it as a joke, but it seemed to trigger something in Morgan as he shifted slightly so he was sitting sideways on the sofa, facing her, a gap between them.

"Actually he's the one who convinced me to come," he allowed that to sink in for a moment. "After I talked to you about the situation with him, and promising you that we would talk face to face, I was second guessing myself, second guessing us. I mean I didn't know what was really going on in your life, if you had met someone; that maybe the night after the wedding was only just a goodbye. Have you met someone?" He sounded worried that there may be someone else.

"There's been no one," she shook her head, and he nodded in relief before continuing his story.

"The Monday morning after he and I talked, I found an envelope on my desk with a plane ticket to London in it, it was Reid's way of saying thanks," he admitted. "I had it nearly a month, before he turned round and told me that most people don't get a second chance, let alone a third. Ten minutes later I asked Hotch for the time off." Morgan took another deep breath before continuing. "I want, need more than a week with you. I know there's no way I can go back to being just friends. Could you?" He looked nervous, waiting for her to answer.

"No," she admitted quietly. "Distance is going to be an issue."

"I'm willing to give it a try. Our schedules aren't ideal, I get that. But like you said the other day, neither of us knows what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, or a year from now. With our past I don't want there to be any regrets; I want to be able to love you openly. So, are you willing to try?"

"After everything that's happened we deserve to be happy, but I'm afraid that if I allow myself to love you more than I do, and something happens, I don't know if I could bear the thought of either one us going through that again. It's one of the reasons I left." Being in London had given her the space she needed to think; she needed to take that step back, to get used to the fact everyone still cared for her, and wanted her to be in their lives after everything that happened, to get closure. The risk of losing someone was too much to bear witness to.

Morgan reached over and grasped her hand. "I'm scared too, but I can't walk away from this."

"I can't either," Emily confessed, sighing as she shut her eyes briefly. "We do things in the wrong order," she chuckled nervously, feeling better when Morgan started to laugh.

"We do," he agreed, caressing her hand with his thumb.

"The sex alone will have me hoping on a plane," she told him with a sparkle in her eye.

A deep chuckle escaped from him. "Did you ever imagine it would be bad?" he wondered, a smile teasing his lips.

"Whenever I imagined us, it was never bad, far from it. Usually very intense, always hot, I would be screaming your name as we came together over and over again." She thought her words had the desired effect until his small smile turned into a full blown smirk.

"I always knew you wanted me," he told her leaning in for a kiss. Laughing, she tried to playfully shove him away before his lips connected with hers.

Relaxing into him, Emily felt at ease again as they slipped into their usual banter. They both had the same fears, but they wanted to overcome them, they would make it work. Morgan shifted slightly so they were reclining on the arm of the sofa; with Emily's head resting on his chest, Morgan caressed her back lightly, fingertips running up and down her spin, making her tingle, as their attention returned to the film they had been watching. After a little while a thought struck Emily.

"I think we should keep this between us for now," she told him gently. "I mean at least until we're used to it ourselves."

"I agree, for the most part," he started, looking down at her. "But I would like to tell Reid the basics of what's happened at least to ease his mind a little. I can't go back to DC and not tell him anything, seeing as he gave the push I needed to come here," Morgan explained. He had wanted to phone the younger man several times since arriving in London, to tell share with someone what was happening; but he wanted to talk to Reid in person, still unsure how to express his thanks, how to repay him for this opportunity.

Emily nodded, happy that both Morgan and Spencer had someone to confide in. From his expression, she wondered what they had told one another, but she would never ask him break Spencer's confidence. Emily knew that Spencer would never betray them. "Okay, but I would like to be there when we tell everyone else."

"There is no way I'm dealing with that by myself," Morgan told her, thinking especially of Penelope's reaction. Emily made a half groan, half laugh noise.

"We're going to need earplugs for PG's scream, aren't we? You know she isn't going to let me get away without revealing certain secrets of your body, right? I'm warning you that there will be a ladies' night and I will be interrogated mercilessly." He smirked down at her, trying not to laugh at her outburst. "It's okay for you, the guys will probably just shake hands, or give a supportive pat on the shoulder, and there may be a comment from Rossi. But they won't demand details," she told him, laughing gently.

"Details?" he questioned with an eyebrow raised.

Emily allowed a sly smile to grace her lips as she responded. "Well, they would want to know about how it started, why I kept it from them; and other details such as size, satisfaction, if you're as good in bed as you look like you would be."

"And what would your answers be?" He asked returning the sly smile.