A/N: Thank you so much for the response to the first chapter :) It made me so happy! Here's a little more Emily and Derek before the mystery really gets going.

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Derek wanted to get home as quickly as possible but, once he was out in the storm anyway, he also wanted to get everything he needed to make the evening special for Emily. The nights they spent together still felt like a novelty. It was only seven months since she returned from the dead and six months and two weeks since they decided to give a relationship a chance. From time to time he had to take a moment to remind himself that she was alive and that they were together. He'd spent so long grieving and regretting the chance that he had missed that the memories of those feelings were often stronger than her presence beside him in bed. But three weeks ago they'd moved in together and he was finally starting to believe that she was there to stay.

He'd been gone for over an hour, when he finally pulled into their street, with a bag of Chinese take-out, a tub of ice-cream, a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers on the passenger seat. However, the smile which had been fixed on his face for the duration of the drive slipped as he became aware of the flashing lights of an ambulance parked outside their building.

"What's going on?" he asked a passing neighbour, as he jumped out into the rain and felt his heart rate quicken.

The neighbour, who didn't have much to say at the best of times, shrugged and continued on his way. Derek grabbed the bags from the car and tried to reassure himself that there was no reason that the emergency vehicle would have anything to do with Emily. But an equally strong voice in his head reminded him that she was a magnet for trouble. He had numerous heart-stopping memories to support that fact.

Despite his best attempts to remain calm, his pace quickened as he entered the building, and by the time he reached their floor he was taking the stairs two at a time.

"Emily!" he shouted, as he rushed along their corridor and saw the light spilling from their open door. "Emily!"

For a split second Derek's body and mind seemed to shut down completely. Lying just inside the apartment, surrounded by blood and loosely draped in a sheet, was the body of a woman. It took him a moment to notice the scruffy sneakers which stuck out of the bottom of the sheet, and the blonde hair which was visible at the top. It wasn't her;he could breathe again.

"Emily," he gasped, with a mix of relief and concern, as he followed the sound of voices to the living room and found her sitting beside a paramedic on the sofa.

Her arms and hands were marked with traces of blood, though it seemed like the medic had been trying to help her clean them off, and her pallor was ghostly pale.

"Are you the boyfriend?" the medic asked.

"Derek Morgan," he nodded, introducing himself and immediately taking a seat on the other side of Emily. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, but she barely responded and remained upright and rigid. "What happened?" he asked.

"I couldn't do anything to stop the bleeding," Emily mumbled, staring straight ahead. "Is she okay?" she added suddenly, puzzling Derek until he saw that the other medic was tending to a small bundle wrapped in several blankets.

"She's a little premature and she needs some help with her breathing but this is one tough little girl," the medic answered. "You did a great job with the delivery, Miss Prentiss."

Morgan tried to process what he was hearing and what had happened in the relatively short time since he left the apartment.

"Did you know her?" he asked, wondering why this woman had ended up on their doorstep rather than any of the others in the block.

Emily shook her head in response as she picked at specks of dried blood around her nails.

"We need to get the baby to the hospital," one of the paramedics announced, before he could ask any further questions. "The police and the ME are on their way." It was clear that he felt awkward leaving the scene before backup arrived, but everyone in the room understood that the infant's life took precedence over all other matters.

"Okay," Derek replied while Emily remained silent and staring.

"She'll be all right," the medic assured in response to his concerned expression. "She's had a shock but she just needs someone to look after her."

"Thank you for staying with her." Morgan subconsciously pulled Emily closer, wishing that she was the kind of person who was good at being looked after. If only it was that straightforward.

The medic nodded before he and his partner rushed the baby out to the ambulance and left the two agents alone.

"She said Valhalla." Emily's quiet voice cracked through the uncomfortable silence.

"What?" he replied, louder than he intended as he failed to control his surprise.

"The girl said Valhalla. Right before she died."

"Are you sure?" he asked, trying to twist his neck so he could see her expression clearly. "Emily, look at me." He gently cupped his hand against her face, brushing his thumb lightly over her cheek and causing her to turn around.

She nodded as distress and confusion flickered across her eyes.

"Em, you had a shock. You might have misheard her." he suggested, as non-confrontationally as possible. What Emily had seen had to have been emotionally traumatic – it only made sense that it would take her mind back to the traumas she had suffered in the not so distant past.

"I know what she said," she responded shortly. "I didn't imagine it."

Derek paused. He knew it wouldn't help to argue with Emily, especially when she was so obviously shaken. But the woman couldn't have said Valhalla, could she? He looked from his girlfriend towards where he knew the body lay, as though he might see something that would answer his question. Doyle was dead; Valhalla was dead. But something about Emily's spooked demeanour made him question even that apparent certainty.

Before he could say anything more, two police officers announced their presence at the front door of the apartment. He glanced at the rapidly melting ice-cream and lukewarm food, which he had abandoned on the coffee table, and sighed. He was supposed to be laughing at her attempts to look sexy while eating noodles. They were supposed to be unwinding after a long case. Instead they'd be speaking to the police and the medical examiner about the dead body in the hallway. And once again, Ian Doyle's ghost seemed to have worked its way between them.

"I should go and speak to them," Emily said, in a slightly delayed response to the arrival of the officers. She stood up, seemingly on autopilot, and moved towards the sound of the officers.

Morgan was quick to follow, wrapping his arm around her as though he feared that whatever was causing her to move would suddenly stop. Or that she would simply disappear if he let go. Until they got to the bottom of this Valhalla thing, he wasn't taking any chances.

"I'll call Hotch once we're done with the police," he told her. At the very least they needed somewhere to stay for the night, but that same intuition that had caused him to run up the stairs to the apartment told him that their unit chief would be required for much more than his guest room.