September 3, 2015
Broomfield Hospital
Chelmsford, Essex

To say I talked to Emily last night on the phone for several hours would be erroneous. She told me the plan had gone as she had predicted, and after that we didn't talk much at all; we breathed together. She stayed connected with me while she drove to the airfield. She stayed on the line while she boarded the Interpol jet. She breathed in my ear during the entire, short flight, and then she continued to breathe in my ear when she got in her car and drove back to her flat, opting out of coming to the hospital because of the media frenzy.

My mother watched me the entire time.

She'd asked me about what was going on with me and Emily yesterday morning, and I hadn't been able to give her any solid answers, except that I loved Emily, had loved her for a long time, and I knew I'd be going back to DC the next day, that there were reports to file with Brooklyn PD and the FBI, and that Emily needed to stay here for awhile.

I didn't tell my mom that my plan was to wait patiently at home because some man who was now dead, but ethereally insightful and profoundly prophetic had told me that she would come to me eventually.

Yesterday afternoon, I did something I swore I'd never do: I told my wonderful, loving mother about Carl Buford. Ari arrived in my hospital room with his mom, who wept and hugged me and kissed my cheeks and thanked me over and over again for not giving up. When they left, my mother, with tears in her eyes, asked me if I intended to find a safer job when my burns had healed, and I shook my head and told her, "No." And I told her why.

For all these years, she thought my obsession with Carl Buford was because of what I learned he did to other young boys - I'd eluded to as much, and she believed me.

I didn't get into the nitty, gritty details, but I told her enough so she got the picture. I have to say that I'd never felt like such a wretched human being in my life as I did when I watched my mother shed those tears for the young boy she thought she'd protected after my father died.

She cried, I cried. She got angry and vented her rage in the form of, "I want dig that man up and kill him myself."

Been there, Mom, I thought in my head. But I didn't voice that. I let her run through her emotions, until, finally exhausted, she sat in the chair next to my bed. She said, "I always thought the reason you went into law enforcement was because of your father, but it was because of Carl, wasn't it?"

And I nodded my head, my final layer of obfuscation with my mother revealed.

I've always given my mother a lot of credit and labeled her as strong and understanding, but she surpassed that. She said to me, "You're going to keep doing this job until you physically can't anymore or until the anger and hurt inside you has slayed the last bad guy, aren't you?"

And I touched her face. I trailed my fingers down her beautiful, understanding face, and I nodded my head.

"And I'll support you," she said. "At least now I know. I think a part of me knew back nearly a decade ago when you came for my birthday and were arrested. I was just too afraid to ask," she said. And then she sobbed again; these were tears for her little boy, and they went on and on until I didn't know where my tears and her tears started or ended, until they all merged together in a pool of sorrow and regret too large to capture or contain in words.

When she finally exhausted, we both napped. And then I woke up several hours later and started staring at the clock, waiting for word from Emily. When she finally called, my emotions rose right back to the surface again, because she was so broken, and I couldn't be there.

But we stayed connected for several hours, breathing strength into each other. When she landed in London and realized there was media outside the gates of the airfield, she determined she couldn't come to the hospital right away.

Instead, she drove to her flat and got into her building before the media swarmed.

And we stayed on the phone. I fell asleep last night with the cadence of her breath in my ear, and I'm sure she heard the same. Her phone must have died in the middle of the night, because I woke up at four o'clock in the morning to the sound of a dial tone in my ear.

She didn't call me back, and I knew she was trying to get herself together, so I didn't call her. Instead, I turned on my TV around six o'clock in the morning and waited.

When she appears on the TV screen outside London Interpol a little after seven-thirty in the morning, there's not a single person who would think she was emotionally fragile like she was the night before. She commands the cameras even better than she did two nights ago. She confirms the story that ran on the wire the night before. She talks of confessions and irrefutable evidence.

"In our effort to make sure confessions were viable, we gave the people we arrested the best accommodations we could. This included bedding and time outside. We separated the leaders of this ring of sex traffickers in the way I thought was best. It was my decision, and I don't regret it. The two most fragile of the bunch, one Helena Meaghan Freeman and one Adrian Stancu, who was the leader of this group, were put on suicide watch while the other five ring leaders were given time out in the yard. They tried to climb the fence late yesterday afternoon. They were given several warnings to stop and shots were fired into the air. When those shots were fired, they continued to climb, and the guns were turned on them. The guards inside rushed the yard to provide back-up. In that confusing, Ms. Freeman took her own life. Mr. Stancu attempted to do the same, but was stopped. All of this is on video which will be released once the oversight committees have reviewed the recordings."

She pauses and clears her throat. "Here's what I can tell you for certain: Since 1998, this group has kidnapped and then auctioned off fourteen children every year who were kidnapped from around the world. That's two-hundred-fifty-two children. Most of them were homeless or from unfortunate situations and their names never made the paper or were only briefly mentioned. We have recovered the bodies of seventy-eight of these children. As a result of this past Saturday night, we have rescued over seventy more, many of them now adults. There are approximately one-hundred more out there that we are currently searching for. We have full confessions from over seventy adults who purchased these children. There were also adults kidnapped and sold throughout the years; we've found twelve of them, but there are still more out there.

I watch her go on to mention a hotline for people to call with leads for any remaining children or adults. She applauds the Belgian Federal Police as well as the prison and local police in Antwerp. I watch her take questions and answer them honestly and easily.

One person asks her how she feels about the fact that Clyde Easter leaked information to the press before this case was over, and she stares him down. "If I were in Clyde Easter's position and felt that my life was in danger and therefore there could possibly be children who would continue to suffer at the hands of these monsters, I would have done the same thing."

The press conference ends shortly after that, and my doctor enters the room. I get released with strict rules, namely that I stay completely off my feet until the blisters heal on their own, which should take approximately three weeks. Hotch shows up, and then Garcia. The team gathers and we head to the airfield, and there's still no Emily.

I know she's incredibly busy, but I'm deeply regretting my decision to let her come to me on her own as Hotch and Reid muscle their way up the stairs of the jet with me between them, so I don't have to put my feet on the ground.

Penelope sits next to me and my mother across from me. My mom touches my knee while Penelope holds my hand. "She's so busy right now. She's been absolutely amazing with all of this, but don't think for a second that she's stopped thinking about you," she whispers to me.

I'm about to ask her for her cell phone when I hear pounding feet on the stairs of the jet and I turn to look at the doorway.

Emily's in her wig and wearing the suit I saw her in when she was on TV earlier this morning. Her eyes land on mine in an instant and she doesn't break that contact to glance at anyone else, but I feel them - all of their eyes are on the two of us.

She walks right at me and crouches down next to my seat. She leans her cheek against mine and whispers in my ear, "You go get well and I'll finish cleaning this up."

I don't ask her, "And then what?" I'm about to, but she moves her head and kisses me, right there in front of everyone, which is so unlike any form of her I've ever known that it fills me to overflowing with hope.

I watch, slightly stunned, as she says goodbye to the rest of the team, Will and my mom. She hugs Penelope extra long, and she drops a gentle hand on JJ's stomach after they hug. "Thank you," she says to Hotch and then trails her watery eyes over everyone on the plane.

She returns to me when she's done with her goodbyes. "I'll talk to you soon," she says. And then she bends down and whispers, "I love you," in my ear.

She's on the verge of breaking down; I can sense that, so when she bolts from the plane, it doesn't surprise me. If I had even one working foot, I would have hobbled after her, but I don't. My mom and Penelope are staring at my face, and everyone else is studiously trying not to. I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. I try to breath and calm down my emotions, but I don't quite catch them in time. I feel the tears in my eyes and I feel it as one tear makes it past my closed eyelids and starts sliding down my cheek.

Before I can reach up and swipe it away, I feel a hand on my face, wiping it away for me. At first I think it's Penelope. But it's my mom. "The only time I ever saw someone look at me like she just looked at you was when your father was alive. I don't believe anybody just walks away from a love like that. You believe it, too."

September 21, 2015
Chelsea, London

Clyde Easter had been busy since he'd first received his diagnosis. It didn't surprise me that he didn't want a public funeral, according to his will. What did surprise me was that he left me responsible for his ashes with no directive at all. It wasn't entirely shocking that he left everything he owned to me. What did surprise me was that he'd already spared me the exhaustive task of cleaning out his expansive flat. In June, apparently, he'd moved into a much smaller, furnished flat right in the heart of London; when I got the keys from his attorney and drove there to take a look, I found very few personal effects. There were two boxes, sealed and with my name on them, and they contained mostly books - cookbooks, fiction and non-fiction - along with a few pictures of the two of us and our old team. And one jacket. His own, self-designed, tactical jacket that he'd had made years before. He called it his lucky jacket.

I have no idea what he did with his medals and various awards he'd received through the years. He seemed to be telling me something with what he left behind, and the only thing I could think was that he was trying communicate that the contents of these boxes was representative of who he really was as a person, or at least the person he'd like me to remember.

So I took the boxes back to my flat, and I put his urn on top of them. I spent many nights sitting on my couch, wearing his jacket, sipping wine and staring at those boxes and the urn, like he was going to somehow materialize from his ashes and tell me what to do.

Because I still didn't know.

I've spoken with Derek on the phone a few times a week since he left, and we've texted nearly every day. The conversations at first were emotional, but that's died down quite a bit. It's not Derek; I'm shutting down. I can feel it happening, piece by broken piece of me inside of my heart.

I was doing fine for awhile, cleaning up the mess here and around Europe, watching over the children and their reunification with their families and the placement of those who did not have families. I was right up the ass of the trusts that were created for each of them. I was there when Melissa McCarthy's parents arrived from Virginia, and I personally flew with Leon to France so he could meet his foster parents.

The vengeance within me rose when Adrian was being sent back to Italy, and I sat on that plane with a gun in my lap, staring him down the whole flight. Once he was booked into the prison in Italy, I returned home. Sometime that night, while I was dyeing my hair back to its original color, Adrian Stancu was gang raped and beaten within an inch of his life. Somehow, it wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. And he's still hanging in there.

Worse than that is the fact that last week I got word that Kristoff was HIV positive.

It shouldn't have surprised me; a group of fifteen people simply does not have that much unprotected sex with that many people for that many years and walk away disease-free. But it still was a virtual punch in my gut. His viral count was very low, and the odds that he transmitted it to me is around 1-5%, according to my doctor. My blood work is clean now, but I'll have to be tested again in about ten weeks to know for sure.

The news shifted things in my mind. I wasn't feeling like a victim up until that point, but I've spent countless hours in the shower since then, like enough water and soap and tears and scrubbing is going to build a barrier between me and a disease that may or may not be taking root and sprouting wings inside me right now.

I can't even imagine telling Derek. His guilt and angst would cause a chasm that I'm not sure we could bridge. Before I received that news, I could imagine us overcoming the horrors that have already transpired. I could actually see us letting all of that go and moving forward into someplace good for both of us. But I can't imagine heaping potential HIV onto that, nor can I imagine potentially risking his health again, even with condoms.

The news about Kristoff's HIV status severely muddied the waters in my mind, then brought to the surface all of my insecurities and issues surrounding relationships, which, when I list them are about a mile long. It was an unwelcome, but perhaps necessary, reality check.

I know Derek's getting anxious, wondering what's next for us. I told him that it would be a few weeks where me being here would be a necessity, and that necessity is nearly over.

I sigh and stand up from where I'm sitting vigil over Clyde's ashes. I wrap his jacket more firmly around my body and head to the kitchen to pour myself another glass of wine. As I pass my front door, I notice an envelope partially shoved under it.

I open the door and look down the hallway, but no one is there. I pick up the envelope and gasp at the flowing script that is as familiar to me as my own. Emily, it says. In Clyde's handwriting.

I close the door and rip the envelope open, then lean against the wood surface and sink to the ground as I begin to read.

31 August 2015

Emily,

I'm on the ferry heading towards Belgium, and I'm feeling disgustingly nostalgic and emotional. The idea that we might not get to really talk to each other again is weighing heavily on me. I've tried to say what I needed to say, but I'm worried I haven't said enough.

Last March I was experiencing some headaches and mild dizziness. Nothing too alarming, but I mentioned it to my doctor at my annual physical. He ran some scans and found a tumor. I saw two specialists; both confirmed that it was inoperable.

When my headaches started increasing at the beginning of August, I originally pondered the idea of whisking you away someplace warm for a week and being annoyingly therapeutic with you about the direction of your life.

Then you called me and told me Derek Morgan had been taken.

When Interpol only gave me two million dollars, I knew we'd need more. So I transferred my own money out of various accounts to pad our bank account. All of my assets are left to you in my will, and I figured you'd spend that money on Derek Morgan in a heartbeat anyway.

I have to tell you that despite the hell of this case, working alongside you again has been a greater gift than any week in a tropical climate could ever be. It allowed me to remember who you were, and get to know better who you are now.

I will not bore you with a psychoanalysis of you. Deep down, you know who you are, too. But I will tell you this: You have true love to give to this world and another person. If you don't think you can do it, consider going into a loving relationship like you would an undercover assignment, where you get to be Emily Prentiss this time, and you allow yourself the time and use your brilliant mind to figure things out.

Derek Morgan is a good man, Emily. Though I don't admit this lightly, I think he's a far better man than I ever could hope to be. He's managed to keep his heart out there and open despite the horrors he's seen and experienced. And he's offering his heart to you.

You should take it.

My pontification in this letter is almost making me nauseous. Who am I, and what have I done with Clyde Easter? you might be asking. The truth is that knowing my time is limited let me tap into my heart for the first time in three decades. For that reason, there's a part of me that's grateful for my fate.

But I wish this end on no one, and especially not on you.

I will give this letter to Marcus Klaus and ask him to to give it to you when the time's right, should anything happen to me. If you're reading this now, it means I'm dead, and you're approaching the end of the road in terms of having to be in Europe.

Know that I already miss you.

I'm going to ask you a question I asked you just a little over three years ago: What the hell are you doing in London? Khalil Gibran wrote, "Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost."

You've given enough and you shouldn't lose anymore. It's time for you to get something beautiful out of this mystery that's called life. It's time for you to go home, Em, and say what you mean.

All my love,
Clyde

September 26, 2015
McLean, Virginia

The moon is bright and nearly full tonight, with an orange-hue. I've been watching the moon every night since I've been home. I've also been watching the sun and the trees and the clouds. I've sat outside through thunderstorms and humid heat. I haven't just noticed the change as the weather moved from summer to fall, I've absorbed it with every ounce of my being.

Being held indoors for nearly a month made me a nomad in my own backyard: At first, I had my mom move a cushioned lounge chair to different areas of the yard depending on the time of day, but a few days ago, I started being able to move it on my own. She's still here with me, but will be leaving tomorrow, and I'll return to work the next day. I'll be on desk duty for awhile, but it still feels like a triumph. My feet are slightly sensitive and I won't be running any marathons just yet, but I can walk just fine.

My days with my mom have mostly been filled with quiet contemplation. She sits in the yard near me, she cooks my meals, and only occasionally asks me anything personal. We play cards sometimes, or Scrabble. She knits and I read. She reads and I nap. And in between there over the course of the past three weeks, she's asked me simple questions about Carl Buford or Emily or Savannah.

I'm honest with her to a point; the Emily questions are the most difficult. I can't tell her everything that happened those few weeks in the house in Theydon Garnon, or on a stage just outside that area. Thanks to Emily and her handling of this whole situation, I barely caused a blip on the media's radar. But that's not why I don't tell my mom. Her ability to keep a secret is intact; her ability to handle another emotional blow when it comes to her son is on shaky ground.

Instead, I've been talking in therapy, twice a week since I've been home. I've been really talking this time, and it's felt like a breath of fresh air to finally say all the things I've always held back. I've done such a good job that after my therapy session yesterday, Hotch came to my house. While I sat absorbing the warm sunlight in the backyard, he told me that I was cleared to return to the BAU.

None of that is on my mind right now, though. My mother is inside doing the dinner dishes; I can hear the clank of plates now and again from the open kitchen window. And I'm right in the middle of the backyard in my lounge chair, staring at the bright, orange moon, and barely hanging on because I haven't heard from Emily in nearly two days. She hasn't returned a text, nor answered her phone, and I'm thinking I might be missing my first day back at work and get on a plane to London instead.

I hear the kitchen get silent and expect my mom to appear in the yard any second. I pick up my phone and contemplate texting Emily again, even though it's the middle of the night in London. I don't turn my head when I hear the sliding door on the patio open, knowing it's my mom.

"La pleine lune de l'équinoxe d'automne," says a voice that reaches right into my soul and expels any darkness inside me.

I turn my head in disbelief, and she's there, her hair just a little longer than it was when she was Irina, but dyed back to its original color. She's dressed comfortably in jeans and a sweater; she's smiling at me and I can't believe she's real. I'm stunned into immobility.

"The full moon of the autumn equinox, even though it's not quite full yet. That's tomorrow," she says as she walks towards me.

She sits on the edge of the lounge chair. Then, much like the night that I walked in her bedroom at the estate in Theydon Garnon and removed my clothes - boldly like we'd always slept like that - she turns her body and lays down, wedging herself in next to me, until her head is on my shoulder and she's looking up at the moon, too.

"The harvest moon," she whispers. "Did you know that in 1970, the harvest moon was set to fall on September 28? That was my due date. I hung in there for another two weeks, but my father always told me that he knew a good crop of love was going to take hold in his heart because my due date was the date of the harvest moon."

No, I didn't know that. Emily's never mentioned her father much at all to me. I'm not sure what to say. She's here like Clyde said she would be, and she's in my arms, her body fitting against mine like it was always meant to be there, and a peace is settling over my heart, but this isn't exactly how I imagined our reunion going.

"Interpol offered me Clyde's position a few days ago," she says. "I declined. In fact, I quit when they offered it to me," she says quietly. She shifts her body so she's laying on her side and facing me. "I have an interview with the Department of Intelligence on Tuesday, for the Director of Policy and Public Relations. It's a different type of job for me, but unless the world is going to shit, it's pretty much going to be regular hours with no travel."

She's a wealth of information and I'm not sure why I'm surprised. Emily would never just walk back into my life without a plan, but I'm still not sure where I stand in all of this, despite her close proximity to me. She's rendered me mute.

I feel her lips brush my cheek, and then she lays back down and looks up at the moon. "Your mom tells me that you're returning to work on Monday and she's flying out tomorrow morning. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon to look at a rental in Georgetown. Do you think you'd feel up to coming with me?"

I nod automatically, and she lifts her head to look at me. She smiles. "Are you going to talk?" she asks.

I look in her beautiful, wondrous eyes and think about what I could possibly say. "What about 2015?" I ask cautiously. "Is a good crop coming for us?"

Her hand against my chest is a welcome homecoming; her breath against my face is causing every nerve within me to come alive again. "I have a lot of issues, Derek. But I want to work on them here, with you. What we had before was no different than coming together in a life and death situation. I want to start over and go slowly and build something where the foundation isn't desperation."

I can tell by her eyes that there's something she's not telling me, but her words are enough for now. I never expected to crack the vault that was Emily Prentiss in a single day, or even a week, or a month. We aren't a fairytale; we're real life, and tragedy has always been an undercurrent of our togetherness.

Less tragedy and a slower trajectory sounds about right.

"OK," I say. "That sounds good to me."

Her body shifts again until she's elevated her chest and is looking me in the eyes. "I don't think it will be easy for me, but I promise I won't run away," she whispers.

I reach my hand behind her neck and pull her towards me. Her kiss lights a fire inside me that doesn't burn; it's a warm ember that radiates within me and glows the same color as the moon tonight.

She tastes like good things to come.

A/N - I'm leaving this one here. The first chapter of the sequel to this should be up tomorrow. I feel like I need to break away from this case in order to move forward. A sequel with a different title and focus will do that for me. Thank you, thank you for all of the reviews. This one was hard as hell to write and it turned me into a bit of an obsessed lunatic searching for resolution until the wee hours of the morning most nights. I hope the sequel includes more hours of sleep for me! :) xoxo