“Good morning,” Emily greeted Derek happily as she strolled into the bullpen.
“Morning, Perky,” he responded, turning to look at her. “Good weekend?”
“Surprisingly.”
It wasn’t a total lie. The way her weekend had turned out had surprised her. She hadn’t expected things with Aaron to take such an intimate turn so soon. Chris had laughed at her when he’d found out about it. The rest of the weekend had gone by like their time living together. It never ceased to shock her how well and how easily they fell into the domestic routine they’d established, but it had felt good to do it again.
Derek looked his colleague up and down. There was something different about her. His eyes lit up. “You didn’t.”
Emily looked at him, noticing the glint in his eyes and couldn’t stop her blush. “That’s private.”
Derek crowed with laughter. “Damn girl! Go big or go home.”
Emily tried to hide her face under her desk as she dug for files. She’d taken a few of her consults home for the weekend with the intention of using them as distractionary tools from her stress. “Shut up,” she groused.
“And how do Mommy and Daddy-dearest feel about this?” Derek had known Emily had a Thanksgiving dinner to attend. It seemed that Hotch had gone with her.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s my life, I get to make the choices.”
Derek raised an eyebrow. Emily’s issues with her mother weren’t really all that hidden. He’d seen the tension between them during the case she’d pulled strings to get them to work on. “I take it Ambassador Prentiss didn’t welcome him with open arms?”
Emily huffed as she dropped into her seat. Derek wasn’t one to give up a line of questioning that easily so she resigned herself to spilling some of the beans. “Why can’t she be happy for me?”
Derek’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “Em, look at the facts.”
Emily rolled her eyes. She knew the facts. “Trust me, I know.”
“Then you know where her issues are.”
“Of course I do,” she replied in exasperation. “What I don’t understand is why everyone thinks this was some sort of whim. We didn’t just randomly decide one day to do this.”
“I know that,” Derek pointed out. Hotch and Emily weren’t the type of people to throw away excellent FBI postings for a passing attraction. “You guys are good at what you do.”
Emily sighed. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, you know?”
In a way, he did. He and Penelope had been doing their flirting dance since the day he’d met her and he had to admit, there were days where he wondered if the distance between them, the baggage they both carried, were things that were impeding a fantastic love affair. But then, Derek Morgan didn’t have the guts, contrary to popular belief, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to settle down just yet. “Yeah.”
She shrugged. “At least we know, right? We could still be dancing around like JJ and Reid.” She knew she didn’t have to add that he was doing the same for Penelope. “Logan Kite was at this thing.”
Derek took the subject change with both hands. “Suspect from the Sacramento case, right?”
“Fiancee of one of the victims,” Emily agreed. “He seems to have bounced back from his girl’s death just fine.”
Derek chuckled. “It’s a fast lifestyle,”
“You’re telling me,” Emily grumbled. “Still, I thought I was going to punch him.”
“You really don’t like this guy, do you?”
Emily snorted. “That’s probably an understatement.” Then her radar went off and she almost jumped. She knew Aaron had gone back to his place for a freshly pressed suit, but it seemed that her body had become fine tuned to his presence since their intimate night.
They hadn’t slept together in the biblical sense since. Just because it happened didn’t mean they had to give in constantly. They were both perfectly content to make out on her couch to a movie. She had a feeling Aaron wanted their next time to be different. Sure enough, he stepped through the bullpen doors, nodding at them both as he made his way up the stairs.
How in the hell is he so calm? She asked herself, shaking her head in admiration. Aaron Hotchner was a rock. She almost laughed with Derek voiced her exact thoughts.
“Seriously,” Derek continued, his eyes watching their unit chief through his blinds. “You wouldn’t be able to tell if he had Jack over for a weekend let alone… well…”
Emily swiftly nodded her agreement. The last thing she needed was anyone else overhearing them talking about their boss getting laid. But damn had it been a good night. And it had done a spectacular job of reassuring her that everything between them was okay. She’d woken up with doubts, if only because her brain wouldn’t let her simply accept what was happening, but he was there, beside her, naked and she felt better knowing it hadn’t been a dream.
Nevertheless, she knew he, in some way, regretted the way it had all come about. Aaron was traditional to a fault, always careful and considerate with women, whether they were FBI agents or school teachers, or stay-at-home mothers. He wasn’t sexist by any stretch of the imagination, but he understood that chivalry wasn’t totally dead. Emily knew his regret stemmed from the desperate feeling of their first joining and not from actually doing the deed.
Derek watched her with brotherly concern. It seemed Emily floated off into her own world a lot more since she’d been injured and in a way, it worried him. She didn’t share details of her private life any more than the rest of them did while on the job, but she wasn’t one to constantly float off into La-La Land either. He hadn’t been planning on saying anything, if only because it hadn’t affected her performance with the team. Now, however, with the number of times she’d floated off, he was getting a little worried.
He balled up a piece of paper and tossed it at her, smiling when she jumped as it landed on her desk. “Everything okay?”
She cocked her head to the side. “You’ve been asking me that a lot lately.”
“You’ve been losing yourself in your thoughts a lot lately,” he replied, leaning back in his chair.
“I’m not allowed to think?”
“Not if you’re overanalyzing.”
They really needed to re-establish that intra-team profiling rule. “There just seems to be a lot more to think about these days.”
“And would that be because you were injured and you’ve all of a sudden realized what life has to offer?” He knew she didn’t think he believed that for a moment.
She shrugged. “It just seems like I’m playing with fire more and more often.”
Ah, that beautiful line between admission and obscurity. She’d learned a lot from JJ, though he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d known it before joining the team. It was what evasive answers were built on. “But?”
Emily sighed, meeting Derek’s eyes. “I love this unit.”
Derek was surprised by her answer. Morrow’s appearance had made her return all the sweeter, so to have her even considering leaving, which is what he gathered from her words, was something that hadn’t even dared to cross his mind. He hoped that wasn’t what she was thinking. “Okay….”
“And I might have to leave.”
Four months and they were that serious? Derek found it a little hard to believe. “You’ve got time.”
Logically, Emily knew that. She had time before they had to even think about telling the top brass, if their relationship continued to grow. She had faith it would. She’d firmly believed they were both in the relationship for the long term when they’d started it. It was why she allowed herself these brief glimpses into what could be and it was why she had slowly and secretively started looking at other jobs. Even the most senior BAU agents burned out eventually, so Emily had been keeping an eye out for jobs within the department that would get her out from under Aaron’s command while still allowing her to do the job she’d grown to love.
“Hey,” Derek called, bringing her attention back to him and their conversation. “All of us are behind you.”
Emily smiled. He’d never know how much that meant.