Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
"Come on, baby, stay with me," I huffed, pressing my palms down harder on the warm, sticky mess of her stomach around the wood protruding from her body. She struggles for breath, and, when she manages to open her eyes, they are unfocused and dull.
"Let me go," she whispers, her eyes reluctantly sliding behind the lids.
"No! No, I am not going to let you go," I panic as I feel her start to slip away. When she no longer responded by squeezing my hands when I asked, I no longer cared if the team saw my tears, or hear me sob, "Please, baby, I love you. Please hold on, I am not ready to stop loving you."
JJ began to speak as she placed her small hands on top of my shoulders. "Derek, the EMTs are here. You need to move and let them do their job; you need to let them help Emily," her hands gave another gentle tug towards her body, and I let her move me. I didn't take my eyes off of the dark haired woman lying on the floor as the blonde media liaison guided me into one of the teams' black suburbans.
Penelope met us in the waiting room; her hands were shaking, face tear-stained, and her breathing shallow and fast. She looked like she was about to fall apart, like the world was about to end; she looked absolutely terrified. She looked like how I felt.
"She'll be okay, Derek, she has to be. There is no way she could leave you after you finally tell me how you feel- yes, JJ told me about that," Garcia attempted to joke, trying to bring some light into the gloomy atmosphere. I didn't feel better, but a small smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. She would make it- she had to."
Time found us hours later; Hotch and Rossi staring at the wall on the other side of the waiting area, Reid rereading a neuroscience book in a desperate attempt to keep some level of sanity, Garcia with her head on my shoulder, her fingers running down the back of my neck, calming both of us slightly, and I was left staring at the clock. Emily had been rushed into surgery nearly four hours ago. JJ left to walk the halls forty-five minutes ago when the deafening silence of the group became too much for her. It had to be any minute now, the doctor would appear around the corner with a small but relieved smile on his face, happily announcing she pulled through.
Instead, we got JJ, whose face was red and botchy, eyes red-rimmed, and tears rolling down her cheeks. My stomach dropped to my feet as she heaved a shuddering breath to announce the news, "she didn't even make it off the table."
Spencer slammed his book shut, sliding it harshly into the bookshelf, Hotch's head fell into his hands, Rossi glared at his feet, and Garcia collapsed into my arms, sobs wracking her frame. No. No, she couldn't have died. Shock prevented me from reacting, my eyes were stretched wide in disbelief, my mouth had gone slack in horror.
Emily Prentiss was dead.
I thought that first week was bad, but after her funeral, it only got worse every day. By the end of the first month I was in therapy.
My dreams alternated between the nightmare of her death, to the bittersweet moments where I see her walk into the bullpen with a stack of files and a cup of coffee in her hands, that moment when she tells me she loved me too, or the image of her in the bed next to me, the sheets pulled over her bare chest and her dark hair fanning over the pillowcase. Sometimes, when I would dream of her in bed next to me, I would reach out to touch her. It didn't matter where, over her heart, her arm, or her face, I just needed to feel her under my hand. But each time, her skin would become cold and gray; her sparkling deep brown eyes growing dull. She would slowly wither away until she was nothing but bones and dust.
Often times, I awoke to the sound of my broken voice screaming out her name, then I'd rush to the bathroom to gag out my small dinner from the night before as reality hit me harder than ever before. My voice would be hoarse when I went to work, sometimes I'd be so sick I was sent home, other days I would call in sick because the thought of getting out of bed was almost too much to bare.
It was around month three where I became angry. I hated Doyle with a passion I believed no man could possibly possess, I blamed Hotch, Garcia, Rossi, and Reid for not piecing things together fast enough, and I couldn't even look Jennifer in the eye because every time I did, all I could think about was that she was the one who told me Emily had died. I was angry at Emily for not confiding in me, that she didn't trust me; I was mad at her because she didn't survive.
Most of all though, I blamed myself. I couldn't help but wonder if she'd still be here today if I had gotten there sooner. Or how our life would have been like if I had told her how I felt when I began to fall in love with her. Would she have still gone after him? Would she have let the team help her?
I began to work on my properties again, but the smashing down walls could only take out so much of my pent up anger, so I also started going to the gym again. I started going to work for longer periods of time and my personal leave slowly began to recover. I began my own personal manhunt for Ian Doyle.
Over the next few weeks, the team members began to figure out what was going on, and one by one they joined in the search for the man. Hotchner, who was overseas, would deny it was happening to anyone who would ask, but he searched his own contacts to see where the man was and requested to be updated on the nonexistent case.
We found him, nearly seven months to the day, in an old tiny apartment complex. Doyle was herded up onto the roof and, when I had cornered him, Hotch's words rang in my ears. "If you get the shot, take it," I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger and slam that bullet between his eyes.
"Guys, Round Table room," Hotch announced, walking at a fast pace from his office to the meeting room; JJ followed close behind with a worried expression on her face.
Penelope looked from the two agents speeding down the hallway to me, her eyes wide. "This has got to be a really bad case, I haven't seen the two of them look so concerned at the same time before." I nodded, sipping my coffee and turned to follow Dave across the bullpen.
"Where are we headed, my special crime fighters?" the tech analyst joked nervously. The rest of us looked towards Hotch expectantly.
What I was not expecting, were his next words, "seven months ago, I made an executive decision that irreversibly changed this team."
"Hotch," I ask hesitantly, feeling my heart speed up at the thought of what happened seven months ago. "What are you saying?"
"As you all know, Prentiss… Emily… had lost a lot of blood. However, they were able to stabilize her and she pulled through the surgery. Because Doyle was still alive, JJ and I thought it was best to have her placed under protective custody; her survival was need-to-know only."
Spencer jumped up out of his seat, glaring between JJ and Hotch, "and we didn't need to know? Morgan, out of all of us, didn't need to know?" My heart lurched painfully at the mention of my confession so many months ago.
"Oh, my God," Garcia breathed, tears welling in her eyes as she turned to stare at someone behind me. When I slowly spun around, my eyes connected with hers, and I had to grip the back of a chair to prevent myself from collapsing at the sight of her.
"Emily," I murmur before bolting out of the room and into the nearest men's room before my stomach heaved up the little bit of food and coffee from this morning. Shaking slightly, I move up from the floor and begin to wash my unusually pale face.
The door opened and closed behind me, and I sigh, "look, Hotch, I really can't do this right now," my voice breaks and tears blur my vision. "I thought I lost her seven months ago, and to be told that she's been alive all this time, to actually see her breathing in front of me… "I just can't wrap my head around it. I'm going to need some time off."
"I'm not Hotch, but I can pass on the message," she says, her voice sounding so familiar and so different at the same time. I chance looking up at her in the mirror. She has lost some weight, her deep blue t-shirt reveals her toned arms. Her hair is shorter- chin length- and dyed a dark chestnut brown color. She looks nervous and tired and absolutely beautiful.
"I guess asking if you're okay is a stupid question, it's obvious you aren't." Emily stated, a tear rolling down her cheek and her voice becoming thick with emotion. "So, instead, I am going to say I'm sorry, Derek. I am so sorry that you had to see me dying like that, that you had to suffer those seven months thinking I was dead… I can't even try to understand what you must have felt. And then to see me here after all this time… I can understand if you need some time and space."
She didn't bring up my confessing my love for her; she either chose to ignore it or she really didn't hear me, and my heart sank a little at that, but I knew it was for the best. "I'm just happy you're alive, Em."
She smiled softly at that. "I don't start work until next Monday, I can tell Hotch you need to go home and I'll drive you. And don't protest, you shouldn't be driving in the state you're in, I can leave after dropping you off," all I could do was nod before she left me to finish composing myself.
Fifteen minutes later she sat behind the wheel in my car, pulling out of the parking garage. "Do you still live at the same place?"
"Yeah, I do," silence surrounded us as she continued to drive the rest of the way to my small house.
She unlocked the door to the house with my keys before shoving them into my hand and standing anxiously by my side, hoping I won't send her away. Even after believing she was dead for months, I could still read her. "Would you like to come in?" I ask her, and relief flooded her features as she nodded and walked past me. "Uh, I'm sorry about the mess…"
Emily took in the mounds of paperwork on the coffee table, side tables, and pretty much on every available flat surface. She smiled, "you're turning into Hotch," she said.
"I had a lot of free time," I shrug, still baffled that she was standing in my living room. Without thinking about my actions, I wrapped my arms around her small frame, crushing her tightly to my chest and burying my face into her neck, inhaling her scent. "You're alive," I choked out between uneven gasps of air. Her arms snake around my shoulders in an attempt to comfort me.
We stood that way for a few quiet minutes before she spoke, "Derek, I kind of need to breathe."
I jumped back, completely releasing my hold on her, "Sorry," I mumble, feeling my cheeks grow warm.
"It's alright," Emily reassured, rubbing my shoulder before going to the TV stand and popping a DVD into the DVD player, then moving to take a seat on the couch. "Just like old times?"
"Just like old times," I agree, walking over to sit next to her.
I found Emily in the middle of the warehouse floor, hands cuffed above her head, the cuffs were connected to a long chain attached to a beam in the ceiling and it held her hovering mere centimeters above the ground. Blood trickled down her arms from cuts on her wrists, her hands turning blue due to the lack of blood supply.
"Emily!" I yelled, watching her head lift up slightly at the sound of my voice. Suddenly, Doyle began to walk across the floor, wooden stake in hand. He would reach her before I could, he always did. I watched in agony as he slowly drove the wood into her abdomen. His laughter and her low grunts of pain filled my ears. When he looked back at me with that evil smirk, I pulled my gun out and shot him between the eyes; then I ran to her and lowered her to the ground.
"I'm so sorry. I love you, Emily," I weep. Her breaths grew shallow before stopping all together, her body suddenly feeling very cold. "Emily? Emily!"
"Derek… Derek… Derek!"
I bolt upwards from the couch, her name still falling from my lips. Hands grappled at my shoulders and around my waist but I shook them off.
She's dead. She never came back to the BAU, she was never in protective custody, and she most definitely never stood in my living room. I let out a loud, heartbroken sob.
"Derek, it's okay. I'm here, I'm okay," her voice came from slightly behind and relief flooded through me. I let her wrap her small arms around me, laying my head on top of hers.
"I killed him, you know… Doyle," I stated, reminding myself that he was truly gone. She tensed so I continued, "After you… died, it took me a while to put myself back together, and when I had, I was so angry at everyone. I think I blamed every team member for something that went wrong that day. I was mad at you for leaving, and I was mad at myself because I kept thinking 'if only I had gotten there sooner'… and at the bottom of all that blame, the reason why what happened that day happened, was because of him. I had to do something-"
"Thank you," Emily whispered, her left hand coming up to rest over my heart, her thumb gently stroking the material of my shirt. "Because of you I was able to come back. I didn't like leaving the rest of the team in the dark, making you guys think I had died… but out of the team, I wanted you to know I had made it through the most. I knew you'd beat yourself up thinking I had died, and you did."
"If I had gotten there a few minutes earlier-"
"Doyle would have killed you because he knows what you mean to me," Emily interrupted, "I felt so awful, knowing that you'd believe I was dead- especially after what you told me before the medics got there; but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I were the cause to your death."
We sit in silence for a few moments, her words running through my mind over and over. "I love you," I murmur, a habit I had picked up over the months she was gone. Right after the words left my mouth I realized what I had said, and I tensed, "sorry."
"I know you do, Derek. I don't know how you managed to keep loving me for those seven months when you thought I was dead," Emily responded softly, pressing herself against my back and tightening her arms around me, "but I'm glad you did. That night, when you told me you loved me… I wanted so badly to tell you that I loved you too. For the past seven months I had thought about how much easier your life would have been if you had known I'd survived. I didn't see what difference it made for one more person to know, but nobody else thought it was a good idea."
Tears welled in my eyes, she loved me, the same way I love her. I turn my body to face hers, cupping her face in my hands and staring into her eyes, which were also dampened by tears. The both of us slowly leaned towards each other, our eyes closing only moments before our lips met. She tasted like I always dreamed she would, sweet and full of promise and hope.
Somehow, we made it to my bedroom. My shirt lay forgotten somewhere in the hallway and her hands greedily roamed over my chest and back. She froze when my fingers grazed the soft skin of her stomach above her jeans. "Sorry, are you okay?" I ask, pulling my hand away.
"Yeah," she nodded, resting her forehead on my chest, right above my ponding heart. Her voice held a note of apology, "I have a really ugly scar… I don't want you to get upset."
"Do you trust me?" I ask, as she nodded I moved my fingers to the hem of her shirt and slowly pulled it over her head. My eyes rested on hers for a few seconds before I let them fall down to take in the rest of her. She was right, she did have a scar marring the skin over the bottom of the left side of her ribs. It was a pale shade of pink and it pulled at the surrounding tissue, puckering as it reached the center of the wound. "You're beautiful," I whisper, looking back into her eyes.
We spend the rest of the night tangled up together, she comforted me, breathing out promises of never leaving me again while I showed her how beautiful she was with gentle touches and slow passionate kisses. I woke in the morning, for the first time without suffering from a single nightmare; her head pressed into my neck, her soft body molding to every inch of mine. It was the most content I had ever been in seven months.
A/N: Found this hidden away in a dark corner and decided to go ahead and finish it. Reviews would be much appreciated, along with any writing ideas you guys would like to share.