Elysium, 13/21
Title: Elysium
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Romance/Angst
Summary: They thought that it was only going to be one night. They were wrong. An unexpected pregnancy leads Emily and Derek to reevaluate their lives.
Author’s Note: Thank-you, to whoever nominated this for Best Work-In-Progress at the Criminal Minds Fanfiction Awards. There’s a lot of great stuff to read, and you should all check it out right HERE.
Chapter Twelve
The next day they had free - two cases and almost fifteen days later - they went back to the house. Emily’s exhaustion was increasing almost every day, and the constant unsubs were definitely not helping. For the first time, she was almost relieved that she was transferring out. If nothing else, Counterterrorism would prove to be a more structured environment. Less flying, and hopefully, a less invasive timetable. If nothing else, it would ensure that she and Morgan weren’t always away at the same time.
They’d brought an old mattress over to throw down in the main bedroom - useful for naps and middle-of-the-day sex as they brought the house up to living standards.
‘I think we could probably move in pretty soon,’ Morgan said decidedly, staring up at the bedroom ceiling. He rolled over to face Emily, who was still coming down from the orgasm he’d just given her. She saw the tenting of the sheet at his crotch, a reminder that his needs had not yet been taken care of.
‘Yeah?’ she breathed. Morgan let his hand ride up under the cotton sheet to rub her belly. Emily felt a soft kicking in response.
‘Baby boy thinks so too.’
Emily smiled at the words. The previous ultrasound appointment had confirmed that the gender of their child, even if she’d already been thinking so based on the strength and consistency of the kicks against her stomach.
This kid was going to be one hell of a punter. Unsurprising, considering Morgan’s genetics. The only problem was making sure that he stayed the hell away from law enforcement.
They both knew the horrors of the job way too intimately to want to inflict in on their child.
‘All of the major stuff is done,’ Morgan continued. ‘And everything else is minor enough that we can get done after we’re in.’
‘Absolutely,’ Emily agreed. ‘I know I don’t want to be moving boxes when I’m the size of a whale.’
There was a long pause, and Emily had the feeling that Morgan was about to launch into his protective, man of the family mode.
‘Baby…’ he started, and Emily gave him a look. ‘Emily…I don’t think you should be moving boxes at all in your condition.’
This was a part of Morgan that she did not like as much as the others. He was a sweet, caring guy, but he also had the propensity to be chauvinistic, aggressive, and on some occasions, downright unpleasant.
‘Derek, as much as I appreciate your concern, I am still perfectly capable of lifting.’
‘Emily, I just…I don’t want you hurting our child.’ The look on his face said that he regretted the words almost as soon as he’d chosen them, but that didn’t stop Emily from giving him a glare, and ripping the sheet covers off.
It was a low blow, and he knew it.
She stood, refusing to look at him, lest he saw the tears that were starting to form at the corner of her eyes.
Where the fuck was her underwear?
‘Emily.’ She hadn’t heard him stand, but all of a sudden he was behind her, a hand on her shoulder. ‘Emily, I’m sorry.’
But Emily couldn’t forgive him so easily. ‘You think I would ever risk the life of our child like that, Morgan?’ He bent his head down, trying to catch her gaze, but she shied away from him. ‘Every single fucking day, I regret what I did. I would never hurt our son.’
Our son. The words hit her hard - maybe if things had gone differently, she would have had another child. Another son.
Why the fuck was she crying so much?
‘I know that, Emily.’ He wrapped his arm around her still bare shoulders, and she couldn’t help but lean into his chest. Somehow, his arousal had managed to persist through their argument, the result of which she could feel pressed up against her thigh. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I…It would make me feel more comfortable if you considered the option.’
He’s right, you know, said a voice inside Emily’s head, and she tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. He might have been that sometimes chauvinistic guy, but this time he was right.
‘Okay,’ she sighed, not quite willing to actually say the words, “you’re right.” ‘I just…I don’t want to lose my independence. And admitting that I can’t do something like that, well…it scares me.’
‘Emily...’ There was a long pause. ‘You are the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful woman that I know. You are smart, funny - maybe a little stubborn - and having a baby won’t change any of that.’
‘But I’ll still lose my independence,’ she concluded, not ignorant of the enormity of the compliments he’d just given her. ‘But I guess that goes hand in hand with parenthood.’
‘Put it this way,’ Morgan said. ‘We’d have to pay Garcia to not kidnap our child, plus, we have my mother, and your parents…’
‘Reid,’ Emily added, which caused both of them to burst into laughter. ‘Could you imagine Reid trying to change a diaper? He’d be reciting the history of sewerage, or something.’
It was another one of those things that would benefit best from discussion at a later date, especially considering the fact that Morgan was probably starting to consider the situation as something of a cock-blocker.
She turned around to face him, hoping that the look in her eyes was enough to clue him in on the fact that she was interested in continuing their lunch break activities. At this point, his erection had softened, but if that meant more foreplay, then Emily wasn’t overly concerned. She took him in her hand, stroking softly.
‘I guess I should assert my independence, huh?’ She hooked her legs around one of his, edging him back towards the mattress. ‘Lie down.’
Morgan did so with an amusing amount of enthusiasm. She stroked him again, the light touches a mere appetizer compared to what she had planned. Still, the touches served their main function, which was to bring him back to full hardness.
Morgan reached up, presumably, to touch her breasts, but she swatted them away. ‘No touching.’
He gave a small sound that could have been a whimper, but Emily was far too distracted to notice. She reoriented her position slightly, glad that her stomach had not grown too big that she couldn’t do what she was about to.
He jerked almost violently at the first touch of her tongue.
‘Oh, God,’ he moaned, which Emily took as encouragement. She didn’t move quickly, instead familiarizing her mouth with the tip of his cock. She kept it up for almost two minutes, hyperaware that Morgan was starting to get slightly frustrated, which in turn only aroused her more.
Still.
She wasn’t a sadist by any stretch of the word, and in her experience, sexual pleasure was very much a two-way street. Morgan had been more than cooperative earlier, so reciprocation was her number one priority.
There would be time for teasing another day.
It had taken her a long time to prevent herself from vomiting after doing something like this, but goddamn was it worth it. She was vaguely aware of Morgan’s hands clutch for purchase on the mattress, grasping handfuls of sheet as she drove him insane.
‘Em…baby, I’m gonna-’
Emily briefly considered pulling off, but decided against it. He made a sound of satisfaction, and his entire body went limp, like a guitar string snapping. His release simultaneously burned and tingled her throat, but she was fairly certain that most of that was psychosomatic.
She landed with a bounce on the mattress next to him.
‘Oh my God, Emily,’ he breathed. ‘Why the hell didn’t we do this five years ago?’
‘I think we went over that,’ Emily told him, amused.
‘I’m pretty sure we’re gonna keep going over it every time we have sex.’
‘So a lot, then?’
‘God, I hope so,’ he breathed, and Emily laughed.
‘Well savor it now, because once this kid is born, I think we’ll be a little too busy for the sex side of things.’
‘It’ll be worth it,’ Morgan said matter-of-factly, and he said it with such confidence, that it was hard to remember that this time last year, he’d been the guy that was going home with a different woman every night. ‘Hey,’ he added with a smile, rolling over to kiss her shoulder. ‘I love you.’
Emily’s heart skipped a beat.
I love you.
He just said I love you.
It mightn’t have been such a big deal, only no-one had ever said those words to her before. Not in that way, anyway - sure, her parents had told her, and Garcia a couple of times, when she was being extra flirtatious, but never a person that she had been seeing romantically.
If she had time to think about it, it might have been pathetic.
But she didn’t think about it.
Instead, she smiled back, and said, ‘I love you too,’ like it was the easiest thing in the goddamn world. It took her half a second to realize that she meant it.
‘I love you,’ she said again, and she kissed him passionately on the lips.
Sleep came easy.
…
It felt like a normal day.
Monday morning; wake up, drink coffee, drive to work. Sometimes there was a case. Sometimes there was paperwork. Sometimes, there were consults.
Today, there was none of that.
Today was her last day in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
While there wasn’t exactly the time - or the budget - for a goodbye party (the kind Emily would have refused to attend anyway, on principle), Garcia had insisted on a cake.
The whole thing was bittersweet.
Emily knew that she had made the right call - for everyone’s sake - but she loved the team like they were family, and the job itself, if not enjoyable, as such, at the very least had its moments of comparative satisfaction.
Still. It wasn’t as though she was going to another city, or another state. She’d be two floors away - visiting was not an impossibility. That was what she kept telling herself. Maybe one day she’d believe it.
She had left the packing of her desk until the last minute, as though by some miracle, Strauss would change her mind, and decide that really, Emily was better off in the BAU after all.
No such luck.
She packed the last of her things into the box, wondering why it was so easy to fit five years of the BAU into something less than 2 cubic feet. Of course, the Bureau was moving towards a paperless operation, with tablets and smartphones replacing files three inches thick, but she still figured that her desk should have been a little fuller.
Admittedly, a lot of the build-up was the files that would remain in the Unit - consults and basic profiles that would probably get handed off to Morgan or Reid. The rest of it (computer and lamp aside) was mostly stationary, personal items, and a couple of old college textbooks on forensic psychology that would be going back on her bookshelf at home.
‘Hey there, warrior Prentiss.’ Garcia perched herself on the edge of Emily’s desk - soon to be some other agent’s desk. ‘More cake?’
‘Thanks.’ Emily took the proffered paper plate and plastic fork, not quite able to dull the mournful look as she stared back over at the empty desk.
‘There but for the grace of God, huh?’ Garcia mused, and Emily bit back a laugh. That was one way of putting it. If not for one single night - one single lapse in judgment (though she still hesitated to call it such) Emily would be sitting at the desk, going over files, or joining Morgan in teasing Reid. Of course, it also meant that she wouldn’t be pregnant, and, just as importantly, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with Derek freaking Morgan.
‘So how are things going with my hunk o’ chocolate love?’ Garcia asked, apparently sensing Emily’s train of thought.
‘They’re going well…I think,’ Emily answered.
Garcia gave her a look. ‘You think? That doesn’t exactly sound very optimistic, sweetcheeks.’
Emily gave a slight chuckle. ‘I think it’s going well because I don’t have anything to compare it to,’ she elaborated. ‘This is the first relationship I’ve ever been in that’s gotten this far.’
Yeah, that’s definitely kinda pathetic.
‘Does he make your heart skip a beat every time he does something sweet? Do you smile, every time you see him, just because he’s there? Do you wonder how on earth you could have ever lived without being with him?’
‘Yeah,’ Emily said eventually. It surprised her how little she had to think about it.
‘Then things are going well,’ Garcia told her matter-of-factly. ‘Any problems you have - small beans, compared to the good stuff.’
‘Thanks, Garcia.’ Emily smiled. Somehow, the technical analyst always seemed to know how to cheer her up.
‘Now go on,’ Garcia said, gesturing towards the paper plate. ‘Eat some cake. It’s the one time where you can eat as much as you like without feeling too guilty.’
‘I am not looking forward to trying to lose this pregnancy weight,’ Emily groaned, but followed Garcia’s suggestion anyway. It was her farewell cake, and damned if she wasn’t going to take advantage of that fact.
The afternoon went by far too quickly.
Emily was due to meet with SSA Ramirez - Unit Chief of the Counterintelligence Division at three o’clock. It wouldn’t take all that long to take her box over to the elevator. The remainder of her time in the Behavioral Analysis Unit would be spent on goodbyes.
Goodbye was a really sucky word for it.
But really, considering the fact that she was about to move in with Derek Morgan, and the fact that she went out with Garcia and JJ, every now and then (pregnancy permitting) and she still got into those “which Doctor is better” conversations with Reid, it wasn’t goodbye.
No, it was “we can still be friends, as long as you’re not busy hunting a kidnapper in Omaha.”
There was a semi-awkward conversation, ending in a just as awkward hug with Reid, and one of a lighter tone with JJ. Hotch was in a meeting with Strauss, for the moment, so Emily made her way down to Rossi’s office.
‘You got a minute?’ she asked, knocking on his open door.
Rossi looked up from his paperwork, glasses on the tip of his nose. ‘Sure, come in.’
She took a seat in the chair opposite him, but didn’t say anything straight away.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked, with a frown.
‘Yeah, I just…’ She wasn’t quite sure how to say it. ‘Before I leave, I just wanted to say thanks for being there for me…there aren’t many people that know my secrets, but you supported me through thick and thin, so…thanks.’ She’d never really been all that good with words, and she was almost positive that she was blushing, but Rossi just smiled.
‘We’re going to miss you, you know that?’
‘So I’ve been told,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Emphatically, by several people.’
‘Well don’t dismiss it so easily.’
‘I won’t.’
…
On her return to the bullpen from Hotch’s office (where Strauss had given her a look that was a confusing mix between disappointment and disdain) Emily found Morgan standing at her desk. Reid was off getting coffee (though she wondered if he was trying to avoid getting in the way of things) but Garcia was trying to pretend like she wasn’t about to eavesdrop.
‘Saving me for last?’
‘Well I was hoping I could make you carry my box,’ she said, with a grin. ‘You know, seeing as how you don’t want me doing any heavy lifting.’ He grinned, and Emily added in a stage whisper, ‘Then maybe we can make out in the elevator.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Garcia, who had been watching them with some amusement, pounced on Emily, pulling her into a bear hug. ‘Don’t be a stranger, okay?’
‘Well, considering the fact that you keep showing up on my doorstep, it’d be kinda hard,’ Emily said with a grin. Not to mention the surprise baby shower I’m pretending to know nothing about.
‘You love our movie nights,’ Garcia chided.
‘I do,’ Emily agreed. ‘But next time you invite Reid, bring a gag.’
‘Oh, you kinky minx - Derek, is she this naughty in the bedroom?’
Morgan winked, which on the list of possible responses, wasn’t completely horrible. ‘That’s for me to know and you not to find out, baby girl.’
‘Alright,’ Emily interrupted. ‘As fascinating as our sex life is, I really need to get going.’
Garcia gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Remember to show them how much ass you kick.’
‘I will,’ Emily agreed, as she stared out over the bullpen for the last time as a member of the BAU.
Things were going to be different.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Romance/Angst
Summary: They thought that it was only going to be one night. They were wrong. An unexpected pregnancy leads Emily and Derek to reevaluate their lives.
Author’s Note: Thank-you, to whoever nominated this for Best Work-In-Progress at the Criminal Minds Fanfiction Awards. There’s a lot of great stuff to read, and you should all check it out right HERE.
Chapter Twelve
The next day they had free - two cases and almost fifteen days later - they went back to the house. Emily’s exhaustion was increasing almost every day, and the constant unsubs were definitely not helping. For the first time, she was almost relieved that she was transferring out. If nothing else, Counterterrorism would prove to be a more structured environment. Less flying, and hopefully, a less invasive timetable. If nothing else, it would ensure that she and Morgan weren’t always away at the same time.
They’d brought an old mattress over to throw down in the main bedroom - useful for naps and middle-of-the-day sex as they brought the house up to living standards.
‘I think we could probably move in pretty soon,’ Morgan said decidedly, staring up at the bedroom ceiling. He rolled over to face Emily, who was still coming down from the orgasm he’d just given her. She saw the tenting of the sheet at his crotch, a reminder that his needs had not yet been taken care of.
‘Yeah?’ she breathed. Morgan let his hand ride up under the cotton sheet to rub her belly. Emily felt a soft kicking in response.
‘Baby boy thinks so too.’
Emily smiled at the words. The previous ultrasound appointment had confirmed that the gender of their child, even if she’d already been thinking so based on the strength and consistency of the kicks against her stomach.
This kid was going to be one hell of a punter. Unsurprising, considering Morgan’s genetics. The only problem was making sure that he stayed the hell away from law enforcement.
They both knew the horrors of the job way too intimately to want to inflict in on their child.
‘All of the major stuff is done,’ Morgan continued. ‘And everything else is minor enough that we can get done after we’re in.’
‘Absolutely,’ Emily agreed. ‘I know I don’t want to be moving boxes when I’m the size of a whale.’
There was a long pause, and Emily had the feeling that Morgan was about to launch into his protective, man of the family mode.
‘Baby…’ he started, and Emily gave him a look. ‘Emily…I don’t think you should be moving boxes at all in your condition.’
This was a part of Morgan that she did not like as much as the others. He was a sweet, caring guy, but he also had the propensity to be chauvinistic, aggressive, and on some occasions, downright unpleasant.
‘Derek, as much as I appreciate your concern, I am still perfectly capable of lifting.’
‘Emily, I just…I don’t want you hurting our child.’ The look on his face said that he regretted the words almost as soon as he’d chosen them, but that didn’t stop Emily from giving him a glare, and ripping the sheet covers off.
It was a low blow, and he knew it.
She stood, refusing to look at him, lest he saw the tears that were starting to form at the corner of her eyes.
Where the fuck was her underwear?
‘Emily.’ She hadn’t heard him stand, but all of a sudden he was behind her, a hand on her shoulder. ‘Emily, I’m sorry.’
But Emily couldn’t forgive him so easily. ‘You think I would ever risk the life of our child like that, Morgan?’ He bent his head down, trying to catch her gaze, but she shied away from him. ‘Every single fucking day, I regret what I did. I would never hurt our son.’
Our son. The words hit her hard - maybe if things had gone differently, she would have had another child. Another son.
Why the fuck was she crying so much?
‘I know that, Emily.’ He wrapped his arm around her still bare shoulders, and she couldn’t help but lean into his chest. Somehow, his arousal had managed to persist through their argument, the result of which she could feel pressed up against her thigh. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I…It would make me feel more comfortable if you considered the option.’
He’s right, you know, said a voice inside Emily’s head, and she tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. He might have been that sometimes chauvinistic guy, but this time he was right.
‘Okay,’ she sighed, not quite willing to actually say the words, “you’re right.” ‘I just…I don’t want to lose my independence. And admitting that I can’t do something like that, well…it scares me.’
‘Emily...’ There was a long pause. ‘You are the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful woman that I know. You are smart, funny - maybe a little stubborn - and having a baby won’t change any of that.’
‘But I’ll still lose my independence,’ she concluded, not ignorant of the enormity of the compliments he’d just given her. ‘But I guess that goes hand in hand with parenthood.’
‘Put it this way,’ Morgan said. ‘We’d have to pay Garcia to not kidnap our child, plus, we have my mother, and your parents…’
‘Reid,’ Emily added, which caused both of them to burst into laughter. ‘Could you imagine Reid trying to change a diaper? He’d be reciting the history of sewerage, or something.’
It was another one of those things that would benefit best from discussion at a later date, especially considering the fact that Morgan was probably starting to consider the situation as something of a cock-blocker.
She turned around to face him, hoping that the look in her eyes was enough to clue him in on the fact that she was interested in continuing their lunch break activities. At this point, his erection had softened, but if that meant more foreplay, then Emily wasn’t overly concerned. She took him in her hand, stroking softly.
‘I guess I should assert my independence, huh?’ She hooked her legs around one of his, edging him back towards the mattress. ‘Lie down.’
Morgan did so with an amusing amount of enthusiasm. She stroked him again, the light touches a mere appetizer compared to what she had planned. Still, the touches served their main function, which was to bring him back to full hardness.
Morgan reached up, presumably, to touch her breasts, but she swatted them away. ‘No touching.’
He gave a small sound that could have been a whimper, but Emily was far too distracted to notice. She reoriented her position slightly, glad that her stomach had not grown too big that she couldn’t do what she was about to.
He jerked almost violently at the first touch of her tongue.
‘Oh, God,’ he moaned, which Emily took as encouragement. She didn’t move quickly, instead familiarizing her mouth with the tip of his cock. She kept it up for almost two minutes, hyperaware that Morgan was starting to get slightly frustrated, which in turn only aroused her more.
Still.
She wasn’t a sadist by any stretch of the word, and in her experience, sexual pleasure was very much a two-way street. Morgan had been more than cooperative earlier, so reciprocation was her number one priority.
There would be time for teasing another day.
It had taken her a long time to prevent herself from vomiting after doing something like this, but goddamn was it worth it. She was vaguely aware of Morgan’s hands clutch for purchase on the mattress, grasping handfuls of sheet as she drove him insane.
‘Em…baby, I’m gonna-’
Emily briefly considered pulling off, but decided against it. He made a sound of satisfaction, and his entire body went limp, like a guitar string snapping. His release simultaneously burned and tingled her throat, but she was fairly certain that most of that was psychosomatic.
She landed with a bounce on the mattress next to him.
‘Oh my God, Emily,’ he breathed. ‘Why the hell didn’t we do this five years ago?’
‘I think we went over that,’ Emily told him, amused.
‘I’m pretty sure we’re gonna keep going over it every time we have sex.’
‘So a lot, then?’
‘God, I hope so,’ he breathed, and Emily laughed.
‘Well savor it now, because once this kid is born, I think we’ll be a little too busy for the sex side of things.’
‘It’ll be worth it,’ Morgan said matter-of-factly, and he said it with such confidence, that it was hard to remember that this time last year, he’d been the guy that was going home with a different woman every night. ‘Hey,’ he added with a smile, rolling over to kiss her shoulder. ‘I love you.’
Emily’s heart skipped a beat.
I love you.
He just said I love you.
It mightn’t have been such a big deal, only no-one had ever said those words to her before. Not in that way, anyway - sure, her parents had told her, and Garcia a couple of times, when she was being extra flirtatious, but never a person that she had been seeing romantically.
If she had time to think about it, it might have been pathetic.
But she didn’t think about it.
Instead, she smiled back, and said, ‘I love you too,’ like it was the easiest thing in the goddamn world. It took her half a second to realize that she meant it.
‘I love you,’ she said again, and she kissed him passionately on the lips.
Sleep came easy.
…
It felt like a normal day.
Monday morning; wake up, drink coffee, drive to work. Sometimes there was a case. Sometimes there was paperwork. Sometimes, there were consults.
Today, there was none of that.
Today was her last day in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
While there wasn’t exactly the time - or the budget - for a goodbye party (the kind Emily would have refused to attend anyway, on principle), Garcia had insisted on a cake.
The whole thing was bittersweet.
Emily knew that she had made the right call - for everyone’s sake - but she loved the team like they were family, and the job itself, if not enjoyable, as such, at the very least had its moments of comparative satisfaction.
Still. It wasn’t as though she was going to another city, or another state. She’d be two floors away - visiting was not an impossibility. That was what she kept telling herself. Maybe one day she’d believe it.
She had left the packing of her desk until the last minute, as though by some miracle, Strauss would change her mind, and decide that really, Emily was better off in the BAU after all.
No such luck.
She packed the last of her things into the box, wondering why it was so easy to fit five years of the BAU into something less than 2 cubic feet. Of course, the Bureau was moving towards a paperless operation, with tablets and smartphones replacing files three inches thick, but she still figured that her desk should have been a little fuller.
Admittedly, a lot of the build-up was the files that would remain in the Unit - consults and basic profiles that would probably get handed off to Morgan or Reid. The rest of it (computer and lamp aside) was mostly stationary, personal items, and a couple of old college textbooks on forensic psychology that would be going back on her bookshelf at home.
‘Hey there, warrior Prentiss.’ Garcia perched herself on the edge of Emily’s desk - soon to be some other agent’s desk. ‘More cake?’
‘Thanks.’ Emily took the proffered paper plate and plastic fork, not quite able to dull the mournful look as she stared back over at the empty desk.
‘There but for the grace of God, huh?’ Garcia mused, and Emily bit back a laugh. That was one way of putting it. If not for one single night - one single lapse in judgment (though she still hesitated to call it such) Emily would be sitting at the desk, going over files, or joining Morgan in teasing Reid. Of course, it also meant that she wouldn’t be pregnant, and, just as importantly, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with Derek freaking Morgan.
‘So how are things going with my hunk o’ chocolate love?’ Garcia asked, apparently sensing Emily’s train of thought.
‘They’re going well…I think,’ Emily answered.
Garcia gave her a look. ‘You think? That doesn’t exactly sound very optimistic, sweetcheeks.’
Emily gave a slight chuckle. ‘I think it’s going well because I don’t have anything to compare it to,’ she elaborated. ‘This is the first relationship I’ve ever been in that’s gotten this far.’
Yeah, that’s definitely kinda pathetic.
‘Does he make your heart skip a beat every time he does something sweet? Do you smile, every time you see him, just because he’s there? Do you wonder how on earth you could have ever lived without being with him?’
‘Yeah,’ Emily said eventually. It surprised her how little she had to think about it.
‘Then things are going well,’ Garcia told her matter-of-factly. ‘Any problems you have - small beans, compared to the good stuff.’
‘Thanks, Garcia.’ Emily smiled. Somehow, the technical analyst always seemed to know how to cheer her up.
‘Now go on,’ Garcia said, gesturing towards the paper plate. ‘Eat some cake. It’s the one time where you can eat as much as you like without feeling too guilty.’
‘I am not looking forward to trying to lose this pregnancy weight,’ Emily groaned, but followed Garcia’s suggestion anyway. It was her farewell cake, and damned if she wasn’t going to take advantage of that fact.
The afternoon went by far too quickly.
Emily was due to meet with SSA Ramirez - Unit Chief of the Counterintelligence Division at three o’clock. It wouldn’t take all that long to take her box over to the elevator. The remainder of her time in the Behavioral Analysis Unit would be spent on goodbyes.
Goodbye was a really sucky word for it.
But really, considering the fact that she was about to move in with Derek Morgan, and the fact that she went out with Garcia and JJ, every now and then (pregnancy permitting) and she still got into those “which Doctor is better” conversations with Reid, it wasn’t goodbye.
No, it was “we can still be friends, as long as you’re not busy hunting a kidnapper in Omaha.”
There was a semi-awkward conversation, ending in a just as awkward hug with Reid, and one of a lighter tone with JJ. Hotch was in a meeting with Strauss, for the moment, so Emily made her way down to Rossi’s office.
‘You got a minute?’ she asked, knocking on his open door.
Rossi looked up from his paperwork, glasses on the tip of his nose. ‘Sure, come in.’
She took a seat in the chair opposite him, but didn’t say anything straight away.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked, with a frown.
‘Yeah, I just…’ She wasn’t quite sure how to say it. ‘Before I leave, I just wanted to say thanks for being there for me…there aren’t many people that know my secrets, but you supported me through thick and thin, so…thanks.’ She’d never really been all that good with words, and she was almost positive that she was blushing, but Rossi just smiled.
‘We’re going to miss you, you know that?’
‘So I’ve been told,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Emphatically, by several people.’
‘Well don’t dismiss it so easily.’
‘I won’t.’
…
On her return to the bullpen from Hotch’s office (where Strauss had given her a look that was a confusing mix between disappointment and disdain) Emily found Morgan standing at her desk. Reid was off getting coffee (though she wondered if he was trying to avoid getting in the way of things) but Garcia was trying to pretend like she wasn’t about to eavesdrop.
‘Saving me for last?’
‘Well I was hoping I could make you carry my box,’ she said, with a grin. ‘You know, seeing as how you don’t want me doing any heavy lifting.’ He grinned, and Emily added in a stage whisper, ‘Then maybe we can make out in the elevator.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Garcia, who had been watching them with some amusement, pounced on Emily, pulling her into a bear hug. ‘Don’t be a stranger, okay?’
‘Well, considering the fact that you keep showing up on my doorstep, it’d be kinda hard,’ Emily said with a grin. Not to mention the surprise baby shower I’m pretending to know nothing about.
‘You love our movie nights,’ Garcia chided.
‘I do,’ Emily agreed. ‘But next time you invite Reid, bring a gag.’
‘Oh, you kinky minx - Derek, is she this naughty in the bedroom?’
Morgan winked, which on the list of possible responses, wasn’t completely horrible. ‘That’s for me to know and you not to find out, baby girl.’
‘Alright,’ Emily interrupted. ‘As fascinating as our sex life is, I really need to get going.’
Garcia gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘Remember to show them how much ass you kick.’
‘I will,’ Emily agreed, as she stared out over the bullpen for the last time as a member of the BAU.
Things were going to be different.