Chapter 2: Morgan

"You talked to her?" Morgan confirmed as he paced outside the hospital. "Did she sound like herself?"

Garcia clutched the flowers they'd chosen together and worried her lip between her teeth. "Only on the phone. But, yeah, Morgan, she did. Now calm down! You're making me nervous… She isn't going to remember us, so we have to try to be as non-creepy as possible!"

"How am I creepy?" Morgan protested.

"Just try," Garcia moaned. Then she halted his pacing, straightened his shirt, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "You ready?" she asked. "It's just you and me today. We don't want to overwhelm her with all these new faces at once."

"I remember," Morgan replied. The look in his eyes was pure, first day of school 'What if she doesn't like me?' and if Garcia weren't so nervous herself, she would have found it adorable.

"JJ will be there," Garcia promised. "She's barely left for a minute since Em first let her in. She'll set us straight if we say something wrong."

This sobered Morgan up a bit. "It's got to be killing JJ that Emily can't remember her."

"She's trying to keep it together," was the most reassuring thing Garcia could think of in reply.

Secretly, she knew that, for all her calm exterior, JJ was not taking Emily's injury well at all. She had always been the closest to Emily, even closer than Morgan. Maybe it was being the only two women, besides herself, on the team. Maybe it was something more. Either way, JJ had to be dead on her feet right now. Garcia steeled herself for emotional upheaval.

"...Come on then. Put on your party face. We're going in."

When Morgan and Garcia entered the room, JJ was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing out Emily's hair, while Emily herself hastily applied lip gloss. She seemed embarrassed when the door opened and she was caught in her preparations.

Morgan felt Emily's eyes run over him first, taking him in before moving on to Garcia and doing the same.

"Hey, Princess," he greeted her with as bright a smile as he could muster. "Nice place ya got here."

"It's clean," Emily replied dryly. She tucked her lip gloss away and rolled her lips together. "Derek Morgan, right?"

"Sure, but you can call me anything you like," Morgan replied. He followed the innuendo up with a wink that earned him a firm elbow in the ribs from Garcia.

"Penelope?" Emily guessed.

"That's me, sugar," Garcia replied. She had the biggest smile Emily had ever seen, yet somehow looked like she was about to cry. "…Sorry about the overactive tear ducts! It's just insanely good to see your face again."

"Hey, look what I brought," Morgan announced, distracting Emily with a huge box of chocolates. He was pretty proud of himself, if truth be told. He'd already decided that if he was going to have to win her over again, he was going to do it properly right from the start.

"Oh, and I have flowers!" Garcia added—needlessly because she and Morgan had bought the biggest, brightest bunch they could find.

"Do I like chocolates?" Emily asked, eyeing the box sceptically. She'd been a little turned off sweets since her unfavourable experiences with both jelly and chocolate pudding yesterday evening.

"You love these," Morgan replied, sauntering over to pass Emily the box with a grin. "Like, I'm not saying you've got to, but you'd probably agree to marry me if I withheld them."

Emily accepted the chocolates graciously, while Garcia fixed the flowers into a vase on the windowsill, chucking out some tired geraniums without much thought. The floral arrangement was so large that it blocked a considerable portion of the sunlight coming in the window and she had to move it elsewhere.

Emily turned to JJ curiously. "I thought you said Derek and Penelope were an item. Why does she let him flirt with me in front of her?"

JJ looked embarrassed as Morgan and Garcia burst into laughter. "Um, maybe I exaggerated the official nature of their relationship status," she admitted. "But don't worry, he flirts with everyone."

"Of all the things I'm worried about right now, a bit of mild flirting is not one of them," Emily replied honestly. She was enjoying the lightness of the company.

"Mild!" Morgan cried, sounding affronted.

"Mild, but hardly subtle…" Emily confirmed. "I feel like I should warn you I'm a lesbian." She monitored their reactions to that statement very carefully and found that, while Garcia looked gobsmacked, Morgan was amused yet unsurprised. "You knew," she accused him. "But JJ and Garcia were both one gulp short of swallowing their tongues. Am I really in the closet at forty-five? That's a bit sad, isn't it?"

"Afraid so, Princess," Morgan laughed. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on the team who knew."

"What kind of wimp am I?"

"You're careful," Morgan replied diplomatically. "You want to fit in."

"And don't I?" Emily asked. She was frowning. Maybe her team wasn't as perfect as it seemed.

"Of course you do," Garcia swept in. "We were rocky at the start, which may be why you didn't tell us right off the bat. But it's been years and years now, Em. You are well and truly part of our family." She pouted cutely. "...AndI don't give a crap that you like girls, so I don't know why you ever thought you couldn't tell me!"

"I don't know why either," Emily answered, feeling a little defensive. But I must have had a reason… I hope I'm not messing something up for the Old Me by saying this. She glanced at Morgan and got the impression he knew more than he was letting on, but he said nothing. "I want a coffee," she declared.

JJ stood up, opening her mouth to volunteer to buy a round, but Emily shook her head.

"Morgan will take me," she announced. "He can get me a wheelchair. And you two can stay here until we get back." There was no room in her voice for argument and JJ and Garcia, while confused, knew better than to start a fight with their sick friend. Morgan was looking highly amused.

"All right with me, Princess," he replied. Then he ducked out into the hall to ask a nurse for a chair.

Emily tried to avoid JJ's offended look, while JJ herself tried and failed to hide it. On a whim, Emily gave in and took JJ's hand, pulling her in to lay a light kiss on her friend's cheek. "I just need a few minutes, okay?"

"Of course," JJ replied, shaking her head as a blush threatened to creep up her cheeks. Garcia's eyes bored into the back of her head.

"So what is it you want to talk about?" Morgan asked, not wasting a second as he wheeled Emily out of her room and closed the door behind him.

"I like JJ," Emily confessed. For her it was a simple conclusion drawn from less than three days of shared company and occasional flirtations. She didn't realise how significant a realisation her feelings for JJ posed in the scheme of so many years of friendship, and she was surprised by Morgan's look of total bewilderment.

"You mean, as more than a friend," he clarified, glad Emily couldn't see his face as he wheeled her along the hall. "Wow… How'd you figure that one out?"

"You mean I didn't like her before?" Emily asked, more cautiously now. "I thought maybe I'd told you that too. Since I obviously told you I'm gay."

Morgan reached out to push the elevator button and then rested a hand on Emily's shoulder contemplatively as they waited for it to arrive. "I can't say I didn't suspect you might fancy her," he admitted. "But you wouldn't have told me in a thousand years if that was true and I didn't wanna freak you out by asking. What you feel, I figure that's your business. You definitely never said anything about it to JJ. I mean, she thought you were straight. Like everyone did."

"Was it about her?" Emily asked. "My not wanting the others to know?"

Morgan frowned, wondering how to express his concern as he wheeled her into the hospital cafeteria. "Look, Em, I know this is emotional for you… And JJ must seem like the centre of your world right now because she's the one you've spent the most time with. Maybe you're remembering feelings you already had about her but maybe this is just you trying forge a deeper connection to a person when the amnesia is making you feel like you have none."

"You think I'm just reacting strongly to the fact that she cares about me because I feel like she's all I have," Emily concluded soberly. "I guess that makes sense."

Morgan released an apologetic sigh. "Maybe I'm wrong," he hedged. "Maybe the way you feel now is how you've always felt about her. But, Em, there's got to be a reason you never told her before. It may well have been a shitty reason. I'm just saying that until you know what that reason was, you should be careful. I don't wanna see you get hurt, Princess."

Morgan pulled a chair out from a table and pushed Emily's wheelchair into the space it had filled. She smiled up at him gratefully. "Thanks, Morgan. I needed to hear that."

"No problem," Morgan replied. "Black with splenda? Your usual unadventurous fare?"

"Yes," Emily replied, surprised and happy to know that this friendly stranger knew her coffee order as well as her mind. Just as he turned to go and order for them, however, Emily stopped him.

"Morgan?" she called uncertainly.

"Yeah, Princess?"

Emily bit her lip. She wasn't sure about what she was about to say. "JJ drinks chai lattes, doesn't she?"

The bright look in the dark man's eyes told her she'd got it right.

"With soy," he answered. "You just remembered that?"

Emily had thought of it when she pulled JJ in to kiss her cheek. The movement was familiar, like she'd done it before. And with that movement, when she got close, she'd remembered a smell associated with the scene. Sweet spices…

"I guess," Emily replied with a blush.

Morgan was back at her side in an instant, hugging her tight. "You listen to me, Em," he told her, giving her a light tap on the head. "All your memories are caught up in here, waiting to come out. You'll be back to your own self in no time."

Emily tried to return Morgan's excited smile as he released her. "I hope so," she answered. I want to be the person you all love so much.