The house Emily is renting is a cozy, bright single story on a large lot, across the street from a park. The first thing I notice is how it's impeccably decorated and furnished, but in a lot of ways looks like how I remember her flat in London looking, in terms of the type of furniture and the decor.

"How long have you been here?" I ask, my eyebrows raised.

"Three days. My mother did all of this before we got here. I asked her to keep things familiar, for Charlie's sake, and she did just that."

I look towards the kitchen where Claudia has taken Charlie to get lunch started and then look back at Emily. "Does your mother know that I'm his father?"

Emily sighs and sinks into the couch. "She does now. She didn't before. No one did. Clyde, I'm sure, guessed; you visited and then I was pregnant. He was the only one still in my life that knew you visited. He never asked me back then, but he wasn't at all surprised when I told him before we left London."

I look at her and find that at the moment my anger is gone, and there's just sadness. It doesn't mean I forgive her, not by a long shot, but I also no longer want to scream at her. I want to sit, but I also don't feel entirely comfortable in this house, at least not right now.

For the first time since I saw Emily at the cafe, I think about Savannah. I think about our home that just last night I was telling myself I loved. I have no idea what her reaction to any of this is going to be, and I feel guilty for not calling her on the drive here, but I know she's still sleeping after working the night shift. I don't want to wake her up with this news, and I don't want to tell her over the phone.

"JJ knows?" I venture.

Emily nods. "But she hasn't met Charlie yet, she's only seen a picture of him. I wanted you to meet him first."

Well, thanks for that, at least, I think sarcastically as I try not to roll my eyes.

"You can tell them all what you want, Derek. You can tell them what a terrible person I am, or that you hate me. They're your family."

"They're your family, too, Emily," I reply.

She shakes her head. "Not in a long time."

I know that's not true, not for the team. And I know by looking at her that she still feels deeply connected to them all, but I'm not going to argue with her because it has the potential of making her feel better, and I don't have that to consciously give right now. I acknowledge that I don't hate her. I would find it entirely impossible to hate the woman who made Charlie, even though I despise what she did.

Emily stares at me and then gestures to an arm chair. I force myself to sit, trying to figure out what to ask her next, now that I'm feeling a lot more calm than I was a few hours ago. "I didn't have to change my will and trust," she says quietly. "You've always been named as Charlie's father in there, Derek. You are listed as who I'd like as his guardian, and have been since before he was born."

I nod and blink rapidly several times, trying to keep myself in control. "Tell me about your treatment," I say softly.

She takes a deep breath and leans forward so her elbows are resting on her knees. For this, she isn't crying or emotional. She seems almost numb to it, and I'm the one who's trying not to fall apart. "I'm doing the Stanford Five protocol. That's twelve weeks of chemotherapy, with different drugs administered at different times, seven days apart. After that, two to six weeks of radiation, because I have a mass on my liver, which is not uncommon with Lymphoma. And then we see. There's a sixty-five percent chance that I'm going to beat this thing, and that's what I plan to do, but..."

I interrupt her, impulsively and fiercely. "No buts, Emily. It's what you will do."

She looks shocked at my words, almost surprised that I even care.

I get myself back on track. "Who's going to take you to your appointments?"

"Claudia will stay here with Charlie and I'll either take a cab or my mother will drive me."

I raise one eyebrow at her. A cab from Bethesda to Baltimore seems ridiculous. I know her mom helped her get this house ready and likely has some sort of a relationship with Charlie, but I can't imagine her being any sort of comfort to Emily while she's getting a bunch of drugs shoved into her system. My heart aches at the idea of her being there all alone, though.

"Does Charlie know you're sick?" I ask.

"He can only understand it in terms of a cold. I've told him I have a bad cold and will be going to a special doctor to help make it better. As time goes on, I'm going to have to prepare him for other things, like the fact that I'm going to lose all my hair. I ordered a children's book about it that I think will help. It should be here tomorrow."

Claudia calls out that lunch is ready.

I eat lunch at the kitchen table with them. I'm told the delicious food on my plate is leftover chicken parmesan that Claudia made for dinner the night before. It's a quiet lunch without much conversation. I am eating voraciously, realizing that I skipped breakfast, and I'm watching Charlie, who is smiling at me between bites while sitting in his booster seat. And then I notice how Emily is picking at her food, looking like every morsel on her fork is a battle, and she has to force it into her mouth.

Suddenly, I lose my appetite.

When Charlie is done with his lunch, Emily announces that it's nap time.

Charlie looks at her. "May Daddy read to me?"

I smile. I smile at him saying Daddy, which is something I'm never going to get tired of. And I smile because in the hours I've spent with him, his proper English with his accent is both shocking and amusing coming out of the mouth of a twenty-six month old.

Claudia walks me to Charlie's room and changes his diaper. "We were just starting to teach him to use the toilet, but then Emily got sick and it didn't seem like the right time. He understands though. Sometimes he asks to use the bathroom, and other times he's fine just continuing to play and use his diaper."

I stare at this young woman who seems to care deeply for both Charlie and Emily. "How long have you been his nanny?"
She smiles at me. "Since the day he was born."

"How old are you?" I ask. I can't help myself. She looks like she should be talking about Junior Prom instead of taking care of a child.

She smiles again. She smiles a lot, I notice. "Twenty-three."

Claudia lifts Charlie and kisses his cheek. "You have a good nap, my little prince. Enjoy your reading time with Daddy."
Charlie kisses her cheek and hugs her. "OK, Claudia."

I read to my son. He snuggles comfortably on my lap as I sit on the floor of his bedroom and I read to him about a duck on a bike and then I read Make Way for Ducklings. I look around his room and notice he has a veritable farm of stuffed animals on the edge of his bed, and many of them are ducks. Apparently, my kid's got a thing for ducks.
"Did you know this is a real place?" I say as I point at the picture of the Boston Public Gardens. "It's not too terribly far from here."

He stares at me, but he's not quite catching on. He rubs his eyes and I finish the book. I get to tuck my son into his little bed that's low to the ground. I get to kiss his forehead and tell him to have sweet part of me that already loves him so completely, who can manage to block out the rest of the situation and what it means for my life as I know it, is in heaven.

As I'm leaving the bedroom, I realize that in four hours, I've learned quite a bit about Charlie, and about who Emily is as a parent, which is obviously pretty fucking spectacular given that fact that three days ago, Charlie was in London, and now he's here and obviously a very flexible, open and loving little boy.

When I return to the living room, Emily is passed out on the couch, snoring softly. I stare at her face and find myself holding my hands back. Picturing her without hair on her head is not difficult and won't be awful; picturing her without her eyelashes, the feature on her that I've always been most enamored with, has me blinking back tears.
I'm mad at myself for even caring or considering that about her right now.

Another part of me wants to trace my fingers over those eyelashes and whisper in her ear, "Don't die."

And then a little anger kicks up inside me. I'm too fucking compassionate for my own good, sometimes.

"Please don't wake her. She usually naps when Charlie does these days. And I don't think she slept much last night," Claudia's voice whispers from behind me.

"How long will he nap?" I ask back in a whisper.

Claudia inclines her head towards the kitchen and I follow her in there. "Two hours, sometimes three. Probably three today after his long morning at the park."

I nod. "What time does he go to bed at night?"

"Around eight," she replies.

I have things to take care of. I need to talk to Hotch because already in my mind I'm realizing that right now, I can't be taking off at a moment's notice to fly to who knows where. And I need to talk to Savannah. And I just need some time away from Emily to sort through things for a little bit.

"Maybe I'll come back to read to him again at bedtime."

Claudia smiles. "He'd like that. And Emily would like that. It's why she chose Bethesda, so it wouldn't be too far for you to stop by."

I concede a little compassion towards Emily. She'd signed herself on to a cab ride to and from Baltimore for chemotherapy so she wasn't too far away from my house.

I consider the young woman before me whose hair is so blond it's almost white, who is pretty in a very innocent way, whose freckles add to her appearance rather than distract from it, whose green eyes are so green they almost seem like they must be fake. "How much do you know?" I find myself asking.

"More than Emily's told me," is her cryptic answer.

When I raise my eyebrows, she laughs lightly and shrugs her shoulders. "She's really not that difficult to figure out, is she?"

It's a loaded question that I both agree with and disagree with, and don't completely understand and it seems like the wrong time to try. Rather than getting into a philosophical conversation with a twenty-three year old about the woman asleep on the couch in the next room, I nod and smile slightly. I turn to leave the house for now.

"Mr. Morgan," Claudia calls out quietly.

I turn and she's reaching into Emily's purse. Then she is handing me a small, black flash drive. "She wanted to give this to you. She'd be disappointed if she knew you left before she could."

I take the smooth piece of plastic in my hand. "What is it?" I ask.

"Everything about Charlie," Claudia replies.

In my dream, the room is not spinning and I don't feel nauseous. In my dream, Derek is on top of me and I am only aware of how his body feels pressed against mine, only aware of the look in his eyes that I know I'm only allowed to see because of the whiskey he's consumed.

No man has ever looked at me like this before, like he just wants to breathe me in until the only two things left in the universe are me and him. Behind him, over his shoulders is a blazing sun.

A horse whinnies and I realize we're not alone in the room. Derek sighs and pulls away from me regretfully. But then he is standing there with flowing, beautiful robes. He helps me put them on and I look beyond him to see a chariot, and four horses that glow with fire.

Charlie is there. Derek, without concern of being burned, hoists the blazing sun into the back of the chariot. He picks up Charlie and settles him into the seat before climbing on board himself. He takes the reins. He looks at me. "Well, come on, Emily," he says with a smile.

I shake my head and realize I'm crying. "There's no room."

"Of course there is," he replies.

But there isn't. There's no space for me on the chariot. I fall to my knees and sob.

"We have important things to do," he says. "We'll come back for you."

Even as he says it, I know it's not true. The walls of my bedroom in my flat in London fall away and he snaps the reins and they are gone, gone.

I stare at the sunrise they create as the chariot streaks across the sky and I realize the edge of my robes are on fire.
I startle awake. I'm sweating, and I know it has nothing to do my dream. The night sweats I've been experiencing for weeks now might as well be called any-time-you-dare-sleep-sweats. It's the late afternoon, and my shirt is nearly soaked through. I blink open my eyes and recognize the living room in the house in Bethesda.

Charlie must still be napping. I look around the room and find Claudia sitting in the chair across from me, reading a book.
Claudia looks at my face and smiles. "I gave him the flash drive. And at least one mystery was solved today, Emily. There is absolutely no way that man could ever hate you."

I get approximately one block away from Emily's house before I pull my car over to the side of the road. I reach in the back seat and grab my laptop from my bag. I spend an hour looking at pictures, reading Emily's words about Charlie's progress and watching videos. My mind is coming up with choices and decisions and options as I watch my son smile and laugh for the first time, as I watch him roll and scoot and crawl, as I watch him take his first tentative steps, as I watch his language developing at an early and rapid pace. It's not lost on me as I absorb the contents of that flash drive that I may not be going at this in the most appropriate way, but my decisions and choices are feeling right in the moment.
I don't veer towards home when I get on the freeway; I bypass it, mollify myself with the fact that Savannah is likely still sleeping, and drive towards Headquarters.

When I call Hotch and ask him to meet me at the bar near headquarters, he doesn't question it, doesn't say he thought I was sick. It's such an absurd request that he knows it's serious. It's just after three o'clock in the afternoon and I'm nursing a symbolic double-shot of Maker's; Emily and I had nearly polished off a whole bottle of the stuff the night we conceived Charlie.

Hotch walks into the bar and sits on the stool beside me. The bartender looks at him and Hotch says, "Just water."
Then he's looking at me like, "What in the hell is going on?" and suddenly I am doing something I've never in my life done. I am the cross between a cliche and an old western. I'm sobbing freely at a bar, my elbows on the polished wood, my hands held against my temples, just thankful there are few people there. The only thing I'm missing are the boots and a bucket hat to cover my face with.

My sentences are clipped, like I can only handle a few words at a time. "I slept with Emily when I visited London. She got pregnant. She never told me, until today. She has cancer. I have a son who is two years old. She's really sick. She named him after my father. He's incredible. He's mine. I don't know what happens next. I can't travel with the team right now."

I feel Hotch's eyes on me, but I can't turn my head to look at him yet. The bartender returns with his water, and I see my drink that I'm staring down at disappear, I see Hotch's water replace it.

I turn my head and glance at him. My glass of whiskey is in front of him and he's contemplating the grain of the wood on the bar. "How sick?" he asks.

"Stage four lymphoma," I reply.

He nods and runs his thumb nail against the wood. "How pissed off are you?"

I consider that question. I'd done a lot of soul searching on the drive. "I'm angry, but I know I won't be forever, and I don't want Emily walking into her first chemotherapy session feeling like I'm angry with her. I'm mostly angry at the fact that if she hadn't gotten sick, I still wouldn't know about Charlie."

"You probably would have soon," Hotch replies.

I look at him and he continues, "Soon, Charlie would have asked about his father, probably sometime in the next year. I can see how Emily got herself stuck not telling you for a long time. It's not right, and I'd be pissed off, too, Derek. But I can't see Emily blatantly lying to her son when he got to the age where he could ask a direct question about where he came from. Can you? And once that happened, I'm sure she would have contacted you."

He's right. I can't see Emily making it much beyond the point of Charlie asking about his father. I'll never know for sure, but in an effort to dissipate my anger, I concede that point. I allow it to be truth in my mind so that I can move forward with a head that might still be full of sadness and disappointment and confusion, but not crowded with anger, too.

"Does Savannah know?" Hotch asks.

"Not yet. That's where I'm heading after this."

Hotch whistles. "What do you think her reaction is going to be?"

I also contemplated that on the drive to headquarters. And I honestly have no clue. Savannah had recently talked about looking for a new job in a smaller practice, sometime in the near future, so that she'd have more regular hours and we could maybe consider starting a family. I can see her accepting Charlie after her initial shock; he's an innocent, sweet, two year old.

But I imagine when I tell her that I've asked to be taken off travel detail with the BAU for the next few months, and that I have every intention of not going into work at all on Emily's treatment days so that I can stay with Charlie and Claudia can go with Emily to the hospital, instead of being alone or only with her mother, the proverbial shit is going to hit the fan. Savannah is going to recall every date, every weekend get-a-way, every movie, show, party that I have walked away from without second thought because of work.

I hope, over time, she'll move past that.

My priority sequence right now is to get to know Charlie, get Emily through her treatment so my son does not lose his mother who loves him so completely, and figure out the rest of my life after that. Good guy I may be, but the fact is that the woman I've been seeing since right about the time Charlie was born is pretty low on my priority list right now. I'm not sure what that says about me or our relationship.

Hotch must sense that I'm not up for talking about Savannah. He changes the topic. "Do you have a picture of Charlie?"
I nod, reach into my back pocket and take out my phone. I find one of the better pictures I snapped of Charlie while we were at the park and slide my phone towards Hotch.

He raises it closer to his face, smiles and then laughs lightly. "He's definitely your son. And hers." He continues to stare at the picture and keeps talking. "You know, we were on a case in Texas the first time Jack rolled over. We were in Florida when he first crawled. We were in Oregon when he took his first steps. I lost months of seeing him when we were trying to hide him and Hayley from Foyet. There was so much more after that, and I've been there for a lot of it, not all of it, but most. And in all of those years, he was always my son, no matter what I missed. You have sixteen years until Charlie's grown."

He hands my phone back to me. "Don't waste your time adding up what you've missed; hold onto the fact that you don't have to miss anymore."

Hotch stands from the barstool. He claps a hand on my shoulder and then leaves it there for a few seconds longer than he normally would. "I'll email you the paperwork you'll need to fill out to get off travel duty. You can be on stand down for as long as you need. And if you need to take an official leave of absence for awhile, we can make that work, too."

I nod and stare at the glass of whiskey sitting there on bar. The ice has caused condensation to develop on the glass and I remember how on that night in Emily's flat, I played with those little rivulets of water on my glass for what felt like forever before I finally got the balls to kiss her. I remember in that moment thinking there was nothing more perfect than that.

And now we're here.

"Hotch," I say before he goes. "Tell the team. I don't think she's going to return any phone calls, except for maybe JJ's, so you're going to have to somehow get to her a different way. But you're her family as much as you're mine, even though she doesn't think so anymore. Make her remember that before she starts chemotherapy next week. Please."
Because after my roller coaster ride of a day that's not even close to over yet, if I could only make one wish it would be that Emily survives. I think this, but I can't say it out loud, because it makes me feel strong and right and weak and wrong at the same time.

Hotch squeezes my shoulder. "I have every intention of doing just that, Morgan."