So...two nights ago, I couldn't sleep. I got up to finish Adrift and ended up starting this, without any plans that a new story was on my fingertips. Don't worry. The last chapter of Adrift is almost done (I adore that story and it won't be another Half the Sky where I get myself stuck).

Read this now, or wait twenty-four hours or less before the last chapter of Adrift is posted.

But I had to get this out for my own sanity. The mind of a fanfiction writer is a fickle, impulsive, impatient thing.

Paget said in an interview recently that she might be making guest appearances on Criminal Minds next season, and this is where my slightly twisted, hopelessly romantic, angst-ridden imagination took me.

I'm giving first-person, present-tense a whirl, with alternating Emily and Derek points of view.

Hold onto your panties...and your kleenex. I hope you enjoy the ride. Thank you for all of your reviews and encouragement.

Of all the places I've lived in my life, my short time in Greece is, by far, my favorite. At thirteen, I became fascinated with Greek mythology; I fantasized myself a goddess of war, a goddess of wisdom, a goddess of healing and faith and hope. I remember I traveled with my father one day to the Sanctuary of Poseidon and saw myself as a different type of Athena, ripping the trident out of Poseidon's hand instead of being stopped, holding onto that trident on the cliffs at the edge of the sea and taking control of my own destiny. I saw myself in flowing robes; I was beautiful and kind and strong and unstoppable.

Then I grew up and I left my fantasy world behind. I was a mere mortal, at best a mortal on the fringes of all those gods and goddesses.

And then I was just human, just Emily, with all my flaws and monumental mistakes and painful regrets and a life I've now lived for forty-four years that I still can't even begin to make sense of, especially recently.

Why I'm thinking about Greek mythology at a time like this is not lost on me. I'm seeing myself in this moment as Clymene, the mortal mother of Phaethon, who is the son of Helios, the Sun God. Helios had the vitally important task of carrying the sun in his chariot lead by fiery horses day after day; he was responsible for the sun rising and setting, which he did flawlessly. He tamed and controlled those wild, blazing horses and carried the weight of the sun on his shoulders and made sure the days started and ended like they should.

Phaethon, after years of living with his mother, one day sets off to meet Helios, and asks for the honor of trying to drive the chariot. The story doesn't end well after that: The fiery horses are too much for young Phaethon to handle, he blazes a path in the sky and creates the breathtaking beauty of the Milky Way, before crashing and causing devastation and deserts and barrenness to a landscape that was once lush. He faces the wrath of Zeus.

I can see the metaphorical Helios and Phaethon in my own life. And I am just Clymene, left behind and forgotten. That's why I'm thinking of the start of this particular myth, even though I can find no parallels in its end. Phaethon will not be met with an abrupt, catastrophic end this time; I know, in my story, Phaethon, with time, will learn to drive that chariot with Helios.

I stare out the plane window and catch a glimpse of the eastern seaboard for the first time in a year and a half, then blink back tears before turning to look at the two people with me on the jet.

I hope I get the time to write my own altered ending for Clymene, instead of living the life of the mythological Clymene, who lost Phaethon, and then, as no more than a mortal, the importance of her part in the story ends and she fades into oblivion.

Sometimes I still dream about Emily. Not about the sex itself, because, quite frankly, that wasn't one of my best performances, not by a long shot. Garcia was out with some friends she'd met in London, and had called to say that she was just going to stay the night at the flat of one of those friends because she wanted to enjoy herself. Emily and I stayed in her flat and we both drank more than our fair share of alcohol. We had talked for a long time before I had brazenly thrown caution to the wind, leaned over and kissed her.

By the time we'd gotten to the actual intercourse part of the evening, the room was spinning slightly for me, and I was so wound up, so shocked that something I had been curious about and wanted for so long was actually happening, that I embarrassed myself in about two minutes flat, and even that might be an optimistic exaggeration on my part. It was probably less than two minutes. And right after, Emily had bolted from her bed, ran to her bathroom, and thrown up all the alcohol she'd consumed. I'm thankful I don't dream about that portion of the evening.

What I dream about are the moments before and the moments after - how her eyes shined with desire after I kissed her for the first time, how her lips felt, how she tasted like whiskey, but beneath that was an essence that I could only describe as purely and uniquely her. I dream about how her body looked naked and how her skin felt pressed against mine.

After she'd bolted from that bed to throw up, I'd followed her, concerned. I dream about the look on her face when she stood from where she was kneeling on the bathroom floor, embarrassed; about how she'd shyly and clumsily brushed her teeth, and then watched me with slightly unfocused, but tender eyes as I warmed the water in the sink, wet a washcloth and gently wiped her mouth. How she'd blinked back tears when I thoroughly rinsed the washcloth again and then even more gently wiped up the stickiness between her legs.

I dream about how she'd touched my face before taking my hand and leading me back to her bed, how she laid down with her head against my chest and her arm wrapped around me. I dream about how her hair felt silky and soft under my fingers. I dream about the scent of her shampoo.

More often than not, I am jolted awake from these dreams in the middle of the night, my heart pounding. Sometimes, they are so vivid that I think the head resting on my chest is Emily, and then sleep is totally ripped from me, and I realize, embarrassed and ashamed, that it's actually Savannah in my arms.

I am thankful that I don't seem to talk in my sleep. I am thankful for my skin tone that hides the redness I can feel in my cheeks when Savannah wakes up and asks me if I'm okay.

I am thankful that I never seem to have more than one dream like that a night, and that I don't dream at all most nights, because I imagine I'd start feeling a little schizophrenic if I did. I haven't had a dream about Emily in just under a month, which is a hopeful sign that maybe they've finally stopped all together.

But those dreams are all I'm thinking about as I sit in my office, staring at my laptop screen at an email that had arrived from Emily minutes before.

Derek,

I'm back in DC area for an indeterminate amount of time. I really need to talk to you, and I'm hoping we can meet for coffee soon, this week, if possible. Please let me know.

Love,

Emily

That's it. It's the first communication we've had with each other since an inexplicably disjointed and somewhat uncomfortable conversation in a bar a year and half before, after she'd come to help JJ, but before the rest of the team showed up that night. She couldn't really meet my eyes when we talked then, and seemed to almost sag in relief when Reid and Rossi walked in the doors of the bar and our private, stilted dialogue ended.

I write her back that I could meet tomorrow morning, and she responds almost immediately with a time and a location.

I leave my office to seek out information from two people who might have it. JJ is sitting with one hand on her slightly swollen stomach in Penelope's lair when I find them, and I enter and shut to the door.

"Did you know Emily's back in town?" I ask.

Garcia's eyes open wide and then she smiles brightly. "She is?"

Clearly this is news to Garcia, but JJ's eyes betray her before she catches herself. I'm not sure what I saw flash in her eyes before her face became impassive - sadness? fear? But she knows, and I can tell by looking at her that she isn't going to say a word in front of Penelope. So I let her off the hook for the time being when she shakes her head like she didn't know Emily was back.

Garcia turns to grab her phone and call Emily, but there's no answer. She leaves an excited, cheerful message asking Emily to call her back.

But I know Emily enough to know that she would realize I would seek out more information, and I know she isn't going to be returning that phone call until she sees me. However cryptic and short her email may have been, Emily Prentiss is not that much of a mystery to me. She emailed me instead of calling or texting, where someone might have seen the text or heard me talking, because she wasn't looking for a reunion with the team, at least not yet. She wanted to talk to me first.

It suddenly dawns on me that meeting her for coffee may have to do with a job offer. It may be that Hotch called Emily, yet again, to see if she wanted to return to the BAU since Kate was now gone. It may be that she wants to see how I feel about that, given that one night in London and my current relationship with Savannah.

I honestly don't know what I'd say if she asked me about that. I could see it getting messy, and I could also see it being just fine, Emily and me going back to our easy friendship and working relationship. Having a partner like her again, something that I've greatly missed.

This story I'm making up in my head seems plausible, and later that evening, I'm able to get a moment alone with JJ to try and confirm it. She's just picking up her bag to leave work for the day when she spots me and glances at the floor before looking up and meeting my eyes.

"You knew she was back. Do you know why she wants to urgently meet me for coffee?" I ask.

JJ hesitates and nods. She steps towards me and puts a comforting hand on my arm. "Just go talk to her, Derek," she says softly.

JJ's face is giving nothing away, which I now know means she's trying to hide something. I could press, but she's not going to break down and tell me. And suddenly the story I've made up in my head about Emily potentially returning to the BAU doesn't make sense in this context - JJ would have no reason to be so cloak and dagger if it was only that.

I let JJ leave for the day without further questions, knowing they would only lead to frustration for me when she didn't answer. I leave the office shortly after that and head home to have dinner with Savannah before she leaves for the night shift at the hospital.

Looking at her face while I eat, I acknowledge that I love her and that I'm comfortable with her, with us living in this house together. Now that we've found an internal compromise with our jobs and are sharing the same living space even though we are often apart, we feel more connected.

Still, I don't tell her about meeting Emily for coffee. First of all, she only knows of Emily in the context of the BAU, that Emily used to work with the team. Secondly, there very well be nothing to tell and I decide to wait until I know more. Savannah knows nothing about that night in London, no one does.

I reconsider that thought as I put dishes in the dishwasher. Perhaps JJ does.

I kiss Savannah goodbye when she leaves for work. I'm thankful that I'll have the bed to myself tonight, because I know I will dream.

I don't sleep the night before I'm supposed to meet Derek for coffee. I stare around the bedroom in the house I'm renting in Bethesda, a bedroom that glows softly from the nightlight that's plugged into the wall, a room that is pleasantly decorated, in stark contrast to how I actually feel right now. My head is a jumble of data, of facts and realities, of hope and despair.

But mostly there is just fear, fear about the future and fear about seeing Derek tomorrow.

Six weeks ago I thought I had a cold, but the symptoms just persisted, and I was feeling more run down than I'd ever felt in my life. I decided it was because I was stretching myself way too thin. I cut back on my work with Clyde's blessing, stopped bringing paperwork home and burning the midnight oil. I started eating more regularly and getting a solid eight hours of sleep a night. I tricked myself into thinking that I was starting to feel better, and then eight hours of sleep wasn't enough anymore, and my appetite waned. Though I forced myself to eat, I dropped seven pounds in a matter of days. I dragged myself out of bed every morning, and finally conceded that I needed to see a doctor.

I was expecting results like anemia, even possibly mono. I was thinking perhaps a bacterial infection and some antibiotics and a speedy path to recovery. But as the testing went on, and my doctor looked more and more concerned, dread filled me and I knew something terrible was looming. The word cancer rattled around in my head, but I was not expecting Stage IV Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Nine days later, the diagnosis still shocks me. And every time I say the diagnosis, either in my head or out loud, I see it like a huge, old-fashioned marquee with blinking lights - STAGE FOUR HODGKIN LYMPHOMA! - and a flashing, blood-red arrow pointing right at me.

The moment I received my diagnosis, I knew I needed to get back to DC. It was my mother who selected the doctor at Johns Hopkins, my mother who found me the house in Bethesda when I said I didn't want to live all the way in Baltimore, my mother who had the house rapidly furnished and decorated and ready for us when we arrived from London two days before.

It was Clyde who let us use the Interpol jet, who swiftly and delicately handled all of our belongings and loaded them on the plane. It was Clyde who put his hand against my cheek and told me I had the strength and courage of ten human beings and I needed to hold onto that.

The optimist I try to find inside me keeps chanting, "Sixty-five percent survival rate," but the pessimist in me talks back, "That's only for five years." The optimist says many people now survive much, much longer than that, a lucky few go on to live a normal, full life. The pessimist reminds me that there's still a thirty-five percent chance I'm going to die.

It's an all out war with my psyche every night, and I never know who is going to win. If the battle ends with the optimist in me having the final word, I usually manage a solid night's sleep; if my inner pessimist is the last thing I hear in my head, I wake up frequently, all night long, frightened and crying. And tonight, I know no matter who wins, sleep is going to be almost impossible to find, even though I'm sick and exhausted.

I wrap my arms more firmly around the soundly sleeping body next to me in the bed, press a kiss to the warm, soft skin of his forehead, comforted slightly by how completely relaxed he is in sleep. I sigh and try not to cry.

I don't know what I'll tell Derek tomorrow. Every time I try to justify my choices and my actions, I come up with a dead end. I have no excuses, except fear and a secret that just grew larger as time went on, that got so big that my shame at not saying anything for so long made that secret seem insurmountable and impossible to face.

JJ was sad and comforting yesterday when I talked to her; she was also understandably shocked and more than just a little angry with me, even though she tried to hide it. I don't blame her. I'm angry with myself and have been, off and on, for years, when I let myself think about it too much. I imagine that my anger at myself is nothing compared to what Derek's anger is going to be like.

Do I jump in first with the fact that I have cancer and I'll be starting chemotherapy next week?

Or do I first tell him that nearly three years before, after too many shots of whiskey for both of us, I made a calculation error trying to do drunken mental math, made the decision to have unprotected sex for only the second time in my life, and I nodded at him that it was fine that neither one of us had a condom. He probably thought I was on some form of birth control when in reality I was jumping at an opportunity I never thought I'd have, a last-chance dream that could finally be realized on his second-to-last night in London, when I was far away from the BAU and rules. I was playing a risky game of roulette, and just like when I was fifteen, it ended the same way.

Do I first tell him that there's a chance I'm going to die, or do I first tell him that the warm, adorable body in bed next to me, the little person I can't bear to be apart from at night these days, is his son that I never told him about?

Do I try to explain to him how at first I was shocked, and then I was scared? That I lifted my phone to call him nearly every day for nine months, but I didn't know what to say because I knew he would not try to figure out how to make a joint custody agreement work when we lived on different continents, and he would not implore me to come home; he would have walked away from his job and his life and moved to London, and I didn't want my own carelessness to change his future like that.

Do I tell him that I silently cried for him when I was in labor, and that Clyde Easter, of all people, was there, stoically letting me squeeze the life out of his hand?

Should I tell him that after I brought the baby home, I couldn't face what I'd already made him miss, without giving him a choice in the matter, that I stopped attempting to call and instead made a daily diary for him, complete with my thoughts and pictures and videos of his son? That I have it all right here on a flash drive for him to read and look through, and that I almost never missed a day of writing to him?

Do I tell him that the first time our son smiled at me, he looked so much like his father that it took my breath away and momentarily bolstered me with the courage that had eluded me for months? That I had actually picked up the phone that day and called his apartment, because it was a Saturday morning and I was hoping his was home, not wanting to call his cell in case he was at work; that with a thudding heart I let the phone ring through and then all courage was sapped from me when the groggy voice of a woman answered his phone? And that as the months wore on and I casually heard about Savannah when I spoke with members of the team, I realized telling him and ruining what he was building for himself might be selfish?

Or that I was just a coward and selfish myself.

Do I tell him that I have a couple of friends in London, a nanny who loves our son dearly and my mother, all of whom would gladly take our son should I die, but that I only can imagine him being with his father, if it comes to that? I don't have to ask him if he would be willing; I have a suspicion that once this secret's out of the bag, his son will become his entire focus.

Do I tell him first that our son's middle name is my father's, but his first name is Derek's father's? Because it wasn't that I wanted to push him out of my life or his son's life, it was just that in my feeble existence of bad relationships and elusive love, I didn't have any clue how to let him in and was too afraid to try.

I sigh deeply again and feel the tears as they silently burn a path down my cheeks. I should have told him right away, and, not for the first time, do I desperately wish to go back to that day I'll never forget - August 14, 2012 - when I had a positive pregnancy test in one hand and my phone with his number up on the screen in the other. I wish with everything in me that I had just forced myself to press "Call."

Tomorrow, I am going to completely rock Derek Morgan's world. I selfishly hope that once his anger subsides a bit, he can still find something good to think about me. I don't dare hope for forgiveness, but I hope he doesn't hate me for the rest of my life, however long that is.

The little body in front of me shifts and snuggles more deeply against my chest. I try to match my breathing to his, to close my eyes, but I can't stop looking at his face.

It's because you know your time to take him in and know him might be running out, the pessimist in my head says.

Fuck you! my inner optimist shouts back.

I know no matter what tomorrow or the months ahead bring, no matter how terrible it all is, or how badly I feel or what this disease and its treatment might do to my body, for the little boy in my arms, I can never, ever give in or stop fighting.