The best sleep Emily had had without sleeping pills in nearly two months ended abruptly.

"NO!" Derek screamed and Emily's eyes snapped open, forgetting where she was for a fraction of a second before seeing Derek's terrified face in front of her, now awake and taking in gulping breaths of air. She reached for him but he gently pushed her arm away and quickly left the bed. She heard the bathroom door close and the shower start.

Her heart was pounding and breaking at the same time. She'd never seen such a terrified look on his face and could only imagine what his nightmare must have been like. She sat up in bed and retrieved her phone from her bag to check the time. It was noon and they'd been asleep for about seven hours.

She took a deep breath, walked to the kitchen and got a glass of water and held herself back from going to check on him. He probably had these nightmares frequently and dealt with them and she wasn't sure he was ready for her to be part of that process. Instead, she looked in the refrigerator and surveyed the contents, pulling out the ingredients for simple omelets.

The shower turned off and Derek emerged a minute later in the same sweatsuit he'd worn to bed. He walked towards Emily and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and Emily's heart thrummed again at the touch. He was still there with her.

"Breakfast sounds good, but I usually run first," he said quietly. "Nightmare, shower, run, food. That's pretty much the routine, Em."

She held back her tears at the thought of how he'd been living, all alone, for these past several weeks. "Can I come with you?"

He nodded. "Of course. I want to make a stop at a store before we head back. It's about four miles round trip," he said a little uncertainly. He could see that Emily hadn't been running or seen much of the outdoors at all since he'd been gone.

She raised her eyebrows at him and smirked, "You think I can't keep up?"

And she got a small laugh out of him again. "I'd never doubt your ability to do anything, Emily Morgan."

They both stared at each other after he said that, a little teary. They'd come such a long way to be back in this uneasy place again. They took deep breaths together and the moment shifted. Emily went to her bag and got out clothes suitable for running and went to the bathroom to change. She came out and saw Derek grabbing some Scottish notes from the drawer in the kitchen.

"How much do you have left?" she asked quietly.

He turned to face her, looking down. "Not much. It cost me a few thousand dollars and my car to get the new identity quickly, especially since I needed a passport, too. The flight out here, and then the flight home I never got on, some clothes, a few tools and food, and my stash is pretty small now."

"We never found your car," she stated.

"Oh, I'm sure that beauty was in a thousand pieces before I got on my flight for London," said Derek. He hesitated, "I'm s..."

Emily held up her hand to stop him from apologizing, and smiled at him. "I guess I can stop making those car payments. Not much for the repo man to come and collect."

And he laughed a real laugh that time. And she joined him. And her heart soared.

It was a cloudy, misty afternoon, and they ran. She could tell he was going slower for her, so she pushed the pace for him. She glanced sideways at him and saw him grin. When they arrived at the drug store, Emily stopped to catch her breath while he went inside. He emerged a few minutes later with a bag in his hand. She looked curiously at it and he reached inside and showed her an electric hair trimming kit.

"You don't have to," she whispered. "If you like this look better, keep it. You're amazing however you are."

She saw it for a moment, that flicker of a sparkle in his eyes, before it disappeared again. And Emily realized in that moment that he had some doubts about how her love for him may be different now and she realized she was going to have to prove to him at some point that it wasn't. She needed to make him believe that he was the same beautiful, wonderful, loving man he'd always been.

They made it back to the house and she made breakfast while he shaved. He emerged from the bathroom looking like the Derek Morgan she knew and loved. And she smiled and cried when she saw him. "Can I hug you?" she asked.

And he reached out and grabbed the front of her shirt, pulling her to him and wrapping her in a hug. "I want us to get to a place where you don't have to ask, Em," he whispered.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They painted the living room that evening and in short, matter-of-fact sentences, Derek walked her through his few hours with Robert Foster. Each sentence felt like a knife in Emily's heart. It wasn't just what Foster did, but the horrible things he said to Derek that brought her back to that place where she just wanted to kill that man over and over again. She listened and held herself together, knowing that a breakdown would stop Derek's talking, and he needed to get this all out. He got almost to the end and couldn't continue. He looked at Emily, embarrassed and ashamed.

Emily had read the crime scene reports and knew why he was stopping. She took a leap of faith that this was the right thing to do and started talking. "When I was with Doyle, just him touching me made my skin crawl and feel physically ill. I hated every minute of it, and most of the time I faked it, but sometimes I'd have an orgasm and I'd be so angry with myself after, like my body had betrayed me and I couldn't understand why or how. And I understood the physiology of it all, just like you do. But it still felt embarrassing and dirty and wrong. But it wasn't any of those things, really. It took me a long time to accept that. It was just a physical response to stimuli. And I know it feels different for you, a thousand times worse because you weren't doing something for your job, this was being done to you at gunpoint. And it was your worst nightmare happening to you again. But I want you to know that you don't have to be embarrassed about it around me. I read those crime scene reports and I knew and all I wanted to do was kiss you and hug you and tell you it was okay, that you're still whole and beautiful, and you have nothing to be ashamed of."

Derek was crying again, tears falling down his face, staring at her. She stepped forward and stood in front of him and he leaned forward and brushed a feather light kiss on her lips before pulling away again.

"You're still whole and beautiful, Derek. Believe that."

He took a deep breath and looked her in the eye, giving her a short nod. He didn't believe it, she could see that. But she could also see that he wanted to believe it.

Derek wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and she could sense again that he needed a break from all of this. They resumed their painting in silence, taking a break for a late dinner of sandwiches while the first coat was drying. Derek was still very quiet, thinking, and Emily left him in peace with his thoughts. She was doing a lot of thinking of her own about how long it might take to get him home.

They started in on the second coat of paint and they were nearly finished when Derek came to stand right next to Emily. She turned to face him and he reached his hand out and touched her face gently, running his fingers from her forehead, down her cheek, to her neck. That touch felt like the brightest sunlight Emily had ever seen.

"It's midnight," Derek whispered. "Happy Birthday, Em."

He bent forward and pressed his lips to hers and this one wasn't feather light. This one held a million emotions and promises, and it made Emily feel like Derek had crossed the line he was teetering on, walking closer to her and home. They stood there in that living room kissing, each with a paintbrush in one hand, with the sound of ocean waves crashing in the background, and Emily felt some of Derek's light releasing itself back into the universe.

He pulled away from her after a few minutes and gave her a watery smile, which she returned. "I love you, Em."

"I love you, too, Derek. So much." Emily decided it was time. "I have something for you, from Serena." She set her paintbrush down and went to retrieve the envelope from the bottom of her bag. She handed it to him and he took it with trembling hands.

"What is it?" he asked, putting his paintbrush down as well.

"I'm not sure. She's spent a lot of time at her desk writing and drawing since you've been gone, but was pretty secretive about the whole thing."

Derek sank to the floor and Emily sat down in front of him.

"Don't you want to see?" he asked.

"I'm not sure if she wanted you to see whatever it was first or not. I can wait," she whispered in anticipation, watching his face.

Derek opened the flap on the envelope and slid the notebook out. He looked at the note on the front and huffed out a laugh. "I think she wanted you to look at this with me."

Emily crawled to sit next to him and laughed herself when she saw the note written in Russian, but then tears filled her eyes. Serena wanted to make sure Emily didn't look at the notebook before she gave it to Derek, but wanted to make sure Emily was there with him when he opened it.

Арте́льный горшо́к гу́ще кипи́т.

"Artels were craftsmen in pre-revolutionary Russia. They formed co-ops and worked and lived together," said Emily thickly. "The literal translation of that is 'An artel's pot boils denser,' but the English translation based on Russian proverb is, 'With a helper, a thousand things are possible.'"

A tear fell from Derek's face and he flipped the cover open. They both gasped at the amazing detail and emotions conveyed in the first drawing, of Serena and Derek the very first time they met in the police station in Warrenton. The team was around him and Emily was smiling standing beside Serena. Derek was down on one knee smiling at Serena, who had her hand over her mouth, giggling.

They flipped the page and it was a drawing of Derek holding Serena in one arm, her head resting on her chest, reaching out to Emily who was wrapped in Derek's other arm. That day at Kinship House when they told Serena they were taking her home.

The next one was of Serena dancing with Derek, with her head on his shoulder while Emily smiled in the background in their kitchen; the first day Serena came home.

There were pages of beautiful moments Serena had shared with Derek when a camera wasn't there to capture them. Serena had always been artistic, but this was something else; the drawings were true works of art, making them feel like they were being transported back in time and reliving the moments: Making snow angels together that first winter she was with them; swimming with her at the pool; decorating the Christmas tree with Derek while Emily sat on the couch and nursed Caleb; sitting in the V of Derek's legs with baby Caleb sitting in front of her, reading him a book; snuggled with Derek in her bed laughing together, a book she'd been reading to him in her hand; Derek teaching Serena to ride her bike. They went on and on.

The last drawing was of Emily and Derek, kissing in their kitchen that last morning in August before Derek left for work. Emily knew because she was wearing new pajamas that she'd just bought the day before.

A note was written in Serena's neat script in the bottom corner.

We are what we choose to remember every night before we sleep.

Both Emily and Derek had tears dripping down their cheeks. "Does she know?" Derek whispered.

Emily put her hand on Derek's and said, "She found the article The Post ran. The details of what happened to you were never released, but the details about Robert Foster were there. She told me she had to look up some words. She doesn't understand the emotional scope of the whole thing, or maybe she does. I'm not sure. It seemed of little consequence to her; what mattered was that she knew I would have to come find you."

Derek sobbed, "I can't believe she knows."

"She's trying to show you how much she loves you, that you're whole and beautiful to her, too, Derek."

Derek couldn't contain himself. Emily wanted to sob, too, but Serena's pictures had given her something else; they emboldened her. Emily gently kissed Derek's cheek and stood up and turned off the overhead light in the living room, leaving them with the soft glow of his bedside lamp. She skipped going to the bathroom to change, and removed her pants and pulled on her pajama pants right there. She did the same for her shirt. She saw he was watching her, but he was still crying. Emily went and looked in his crate of clothes, finding a clean t-shirt and flannel pajama pants to trade for his paint-covered clothes. She gently removed the notebook from his hand and quickly pulled his shirt up and off, then quickly covered him again with the new shirt. She held his pajama pants out to him and he looked at her for a second before standing and pulling off his jeans and putting on the plaid flannel.

Emily took his hand and lead him to the bed. He laid down and she followed, not leaving a space between them. Instead she wrapped her arms around him and held him while he cried, pressing gentle kisses on his face. "Pick a good memory and sleep, Derek. I'm here. I won't let you go." she said.

He nodded against her and pulled her closer and tighter.