Derek didn't say anything as he drove them back to his place. He didn't say anything as he ran a bath for Emily, as he found her something warm and dry to wear, as he made her tea. He didn't say anything as he changed the sheets on the bed, then tucked Emily in.

He didn't say anything as he turned to leave, but Emily did. It was small and meek, but in the massive silence hanging thick in the air of the bedroom, it sounded like she'd shouted. "Don't leave..."

He stopped at the threshold, glanced at her over his shoulder. "I'll just be on the couch," he said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Don't leave," she said again. Tears were once again pooling in her eyes.

He sighed, nodded slowly. He'd never been all that good at denying her things to begin with. Climbing into bed next to her, he seemed unsure of how close he was allowed to get, whether or not he was allowed to touch her. He wanted to follow her lead as he was so far out of his depth here, but she too seemed not to know the answers.

Derek woke up in the middle of the night to a sound he didn't immediately recognize. It took him a few moments to recognize the sound as being Emily sobbing and his heart very nearly rent in two. He didn't think he'd ever heard anyone – let alone Emily Prentiss – cry that hard.

He wasn't entirely certain what he should do in this situation, knowing how close to the chest Emily liked to keep things...but he just couldn't listen to her cry like that without doing something.

He climbed out of bed and padded to the en-suite, knocking softly on the door. "Em?" he said, "Em, let me in."

Almost immediately, she attempted to stifle the sound of her sobs. "I'm okay," she attempted to say, but her voice warbled against her will and she knew he wouldn't believe her.

"Please let me in," he insisted, still gentle, but also obviously concerned.

With a little sigh, she said, "It's unlocked."

When he pushed the door open, it was to find her leaning over the sink, tears spilling freely down her face. He took a few steps closer to rest a hand on her back, feeling it heaving with each sob, which is when he was able to see what it was she'd been doing... The sink was half-full of pink-tinged water as she desperately tried to scrub the stubborn blood stains from her underwear.

"Em..." he said, but seemed at a loss for words as to what came next.

She surprised him then by turning sharply and throwing herself at him. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her as tight as he possibly could as she broke down in his arms, tears wetting the fabric of his t-shirt.

"I'm sorry," she said, over and over, "I'm so sorry..."

"Hey," he urged, cradling her in his arms, "None of this was your fault, Princess."

"Yes, it was!" she said, suddenly furious, pushing away from him in a fit of pique. Her hands balled into fists at her sides and she looked like she would have liked to hit something, break something. Ultimately, though, the thing she wanted most to break was herself, so she did nothing, though she trembled slightly with the force of her anger. "I didn't even know I was..." She trailed off abruptly, seeming unable to even say the word.

He reached for her again, but stopped short of making contact, unsure whether she'd be receptive to his particular brand of open affection just then. "Em, I don't think..." he started to say.

"No, you don't think!" she snapped, eyes blazing with fury. Almost immediately, she regretted the bitter words, her eyes filling up with tears once again.

"Hey," he said gently; this time when he reached for her, he clasped her hand, pulled her into his arms once again. She didn't fight him. "If you need to be angry, go ahead. I can take it."

Rather than words borne of fury, though, what fell from her lips was a meek, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't you angry?" she asked, pulling back just enough to look in his eyes, needing to see something there, though she couldn't have articulated what exactly if asked. "You lost a baby too..." she added, voice barely there at all.

He shrugged, though there was no ambiguity in his mind. "Because," he said simply, "You need me right now. There will be time for everything else later."

"But..." she began to protest.

He didn't let her finish. "Come on, Princess, let's go back to bed. We'll watch some garbage movie and figure out the rest tomorrow. Okay?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but an errant hiccup escaped. She nodded, tried again, mumbled a weak, "Okay."

She blinked up at him, fat teardrops clinging to her lashes, and he couldn't help but think that even in this moment of utter hopelessness, she was still the most beautiful person in the world... He'd been having thoughts like that for years, pretty much from the very first moment they'd met, but it had never been the right moment to say those kind of things to her and, he was beginning to think that maybe the so-called 'right moment' was simply never going to arrive. Maybe, one day, he'd be okay with that...

Leaning in to kiss her temple, he attempted to reassure her that, so long as he drew breath, he would make sure that everything eventually was okay. (He wasn't entirely certain that he believed his own reassurances, but he certainly wasn't about to voice that, not when her own grasp on her emotions seemed to be tenuous at best. He would do what he always did: namely, make everything okay for the people around him and, maybe, eventually, things actually would be okay...)