"We need to go," I tell Emily firmly, shutting off the video cameras in the interrogation room.

She looks at me, taken aback, like there isn't a single part of that sentence she understands. It's late – the children are all sleeping on cots, but she's wide awake, sitting vigil over their beds. "Go where?" she eventually finds her tongue, speaking softly so as not to wake them. "Why?"

I shake my head. I can't give her any details, not yet, not when someone could be listening. "You're just going to have to trust me," I tell her.

"What's going on, Derek?" she asks, using my name for the first time in fifteen years. It makes my heart clench, the same way as when we were teenagers, the way it falls from her lips.

Fifteen years ago, she might have trusted me explicitly, but a lot of things have changed in that time. She seems reluctant to take that leap again and I realize I'm going to have to give her a bit of lead if I expect her to follow.

"They've matched Doyle's DNA to a cold case from fifteen years ago." I pause, waiting for that to sink in, waiting for a reaction. "They're getting a warrant for your DNA to test against the female sample left at the scene. It's going to be a match, isn't it?"

Unconsciously, she starts picking at her nails under the table. That's all the answer I need.

"Doyle killed him, didn't he? But you helped..."

Her eyes are wide and she shakes her head slowly, but she remains mute, struggling to form words.

"When you killed him, did you know you left your DNA at the scene?"

She shakes her head again. "You know what he did to me," she whispers, looking every bit the frightened teenager she used to be. "I didn't kill him, though."

"But you were there?"

She doesn't say anything for a long time and even after all this time, I can still read her like a book.

"You're protecting Doyle aren't you?"

She doesn't respond right away, looking guilty, looking ashamed. Looking anywhere but at me.

Something inside me snaps. "They're going to arrest you, Emily! They're going to lock you away! Don't you get that?" I burst out.

She glares at me, reminding me not to wake the children – Morgana is stirring in her sleep – and I briefly feel bad, but the feeling doesn't last for very long.

"Doyle isn't going to protect you – he's facing life in prison, he could easily sell you out for a lesser sentence."

"Stop it!" she shouts. "You don't know him! He would never do that – he's protected me for the last fifteen years, he protected me when no one else would."

That cuts me worse than any knife could and she must see that in my face because she falters.

"I didn't mean that..." she says, voice and eyes soft again. "I just meant..." She sighs a little, shrugs helplessly. "I'm sorry, Derek. I know you tried to protect me. You always tried."

We're both silent for a long moment as she reaches across the table to rest her hand on top of mine and squeezes softly. Her touch takes me right back to that first day I met her, sitting on the hood of her car and baring my soul to her.

"I'm trying now," I tell her on a strangled breath. I clear my throat and try again with a firmer voice. "We need to leave."

"Where are we going?" she asks again, still reluctant to trust me with her whole heart the way she used to.

I shake my head and point towards the two-way mirror; everyone should be at home, asleep, but I'm not going to risk it. "If we're going, we need to go now."

"I can't..." She chokes on a trembling breath. "I can't leave without Ian," she insists.

"Ian could face the death penalty – it's too risky." I want to shake her, to make her see reason. Ian Doyle is a bad man, has always been a bad man, and it's finally caught up with him. She and her children are going to get caught up in his wake and left to drown.

"I need him," she pleads, eyes starting to shine with tears. I see the frightened teenager in her eyes and know she's drowning already. "I...I'm pregnant."

Her confession knocks the air from my lungs. "What?" I ask, struggling breathe, feeling like I've just been punched in the chest.

"I can't do it without him. Please...you have to help him. For me."

I feel the burning anger rising inside me again, the urge to shake her getting stronger. This is not the same Emily Prentiss I fell in love with fifteen years ago. "That's bullshit, Emily," I hiss and she flinches like I've just slapped her, but I can't falter, can't soften. "You don't need him – you don't need anybody. Emily Prentiss is the strongest damn woman I've ever met and this snivelling helpless damsel-in-distress is not her. Emily Prentiss wouldn't be caught dead crying over some guy, not when innocent lives at stake. She would hold her head high and do what's best for the people that need her and right now, that's these children," I say firmly, gesturing at the three sleeping forms.

"But...I love him," she whispers, almost ashamed, once again refusing to meet my eyes.

"Emily, we have to leave. It's the only way to protect you and your children. I can't protect Ian too." I don't add that I won't lose any sleep over it – he may have protected Emily, he may have loved her even, but that doesn't change the kind of man he was: the kind of man that could never deserve Emily Prentiss.

"I don't know how to do this without him," she whispers, eyes flicking down to her belly. "I don't know how to do this alone."

"You won't be alone," I assure her, resting my hands on her shoulders, gripping tightly, so that she's forced to look at me.

"You can't come with us," she insists, looking at me like I've lost my mind.

"Of course, I'm coming!" I insist right back.

"Do you realize what that means? This is permanent – no going back. You're aiding and abetting a murder suspect – we'll both be fugitives, we'll be on the run, forever. No contacting your family, no coming home. Ever. Just you and me and four children..."

I don't tell her that having her doesn't sound like a bad life. "Do you remember the letter you wrote me?" I ask, unfolding the piece of paper in my back pocket. I've read and reread the words so many times I could repeat it from memory alone.

"You kept that?" she asks, incredulous, like she can't believe she was that important to anyone.

I slide the paper emphatically towards her. "You said that maybe there was another universe where we could have been together," I paraphrase the letter, "But what about this universe? What if it's giving us a second chance?"

She opens and closes her mouth mutely a few times and I can tell she's desperately searching for an excuse, any excuse, to sway me.

"I've got passports for us, bank accounts, everything we'll need to start over. But we have to leave now," I say plainly. "But the decision is up to you."

She looks silently at her children for a long time, face wistful. "How do I tell them? That they'll never see their father again? That they can never be themselves again? How do I...have this baby on my own?"

"You'll have me. And as for the rest of that...well, we just take it one day at a time."

Her eyes are shining, hopeful, but wary as she takes my hand in hers.