So, here it is: the last instalment of the Mercy Seat. Thank you once again so much to all those who have encouraged me while writing this! A special thanks to those loyal guest reviewers whom I never got to thank personally but who so consistently lent their support and brightened my day with their kind words and insightful comments. I'm having mixed feelings about the end of this, particularly because it means I can start writing the other storyline that's been bugging me for the past few weeks-one that probably should not be written but, let's face it, most likely will be.

Also, yeah, I totally reference Blade Runner in this chapter. You knew it was coming.

Bang.

Emily awoke in a rush of tears and panic, gulping down air as if she had been drowning and skittering her bottom clumsily away from the Subject as soon as her shaking limbs began to cooperate.

Bang. BANG.

She started so violently she bit her tongue, and the taste of metal filled her mouth.

"Shit," she hissed. She had lost track of time, and Rossi coming in to start work. Panicking, Emily started towards the door, then backtracked. There was no way to explain opening the door looking like she was. If she took a second to compose herself… make it look like she was in the middle of working…

But why would Rossi be banging on his own office door anyhow?

"Emily? Come on, Honey, I know you're in there." It wasn't Rossi's voice. Emily's heart stuttered. Garcia. Of course she knew.

"Open up, Em." JJ's voice now. "You're not in trouble. They just want to talk to you." Who were they? Emily pictured them standing outside the door with a couple of the burly Enforcement officers they used to flirt with.

Yeah, she was in trouble. She was in big fucking trouble. Emily began backing away from the door, her thoughts a blur as snippets of memory flashed across her racing mind:

"I don't think they're dreams, JJ."

"You don't ever have to thank us. It's what we're here for."

It's what we're here for… It's what we're here for…

One: There is no escape.

Emily's eyes darted back to Derek, still and vulnerable in his artificial slumber. Another pound at the door made her jump, and with every second that passed she became more and more certain: he couldn't come join her here. Here was the prison. She had to join him, and she had no idea how she was going to do that.

Emily dropped to her knees and shook him. "Derek," she hissed. "Derek!" She threw a panicked look over her shoulder as Hotchner's voice became audible through the steel door. She had gotten it all wrong, she realized, still begging him to open his eyes. The voice in Derek's cell wasn't counting up to something—it was counting down. And Derek was running out of time.

With Hotchner's arrival came the anticipated clicks of an access code being entered on the other side of the door. Emily took a breath, gripped the thick wires that attached Derek to the machinery in the corner of the room, took a moment to let their cool heaviness anchor her, and dropped into the bath of pearly fluid with him.

Seven…

Emily fought against the disorienting flashes that accosted her—images of blood and loss and confusion that were starting to seem more and more hauntingly familiar—and put all her focus on the huddled figure in the corner of the cell.

Eight…

"Derek!" She cried as she reached him and crouched down in front of him. His blank eyes stared past her. Emily reached out to take his face between her hands. "Derek," she choked. "I'm sorry. I—I do know. I know who Grace's father was." Tears filled her eyes as she continued. "I may not remember everything, but—" she hiccoughed. "But I remember I loved him. I loved him, Derek. Please, please look at me. I love you." A flash of recognition broke through the glassiness of his eyes, and Emily's breath hitched. "Yes," she breathed, smiling widely as the tears continued to run down her cheeks. "That's it. Keep looking at me, okay? Just keep looking at me."

Nine…

Emily reached deep, deep into herself to where she could still feel the strange, heavy wetness of the fluid surrounding them and the weight of the wires still clutched in her hand. She put all her focus into that hand and pulled.

Several things happened almost simultaneously.

The grey cell flashed white and then disappeared altogether, and Emily wasn't sure if it was her own pain that laced through her head or Derek's, but it left as quickly as it came. Once again, she was pressed against her lover in an interrogation room, surrounded by glistening white goop.

Derek's body beneath her tensed, almost convulsing, and he took a long, gasping breath. His eyes snapped open, dim with confusion at first, then focusing on her and lightening with relief and—Emily nearly fainted from gratitude—recognition.

"Emily," he nearly sobbed, and his hands came around her waist and his body rose to press more closely into her and his lips found hers…

And Emily felt hands gripping her shoulders, and she was dragged roughly up and away from him, dripping, to land on her bottom on the cold tile. Still slightly disoriented, she lashed out blindly at her attacker, the slick that still covered her working to her advantage in squirming out of his grip. As her elbow connected solidly with flesh and bone, it was Hotchner's voice that grunted in response, but when she turned to face him, she couldn't quite make out his features.

It was a strange feeling of anonymity, but it made her bold. He grabbed for her again, but his hands slipped off her skin, and Emily landed another hit to his jaw. Beside her, an unfamiliar Enforcement agent (had they always been so featureless?) reached for Derek but found himself flipped and submerged in the viscous bath. As Derek held down the struggling body with one hand, the other fished for something beneath the fluid. A second agent lunged at him in order to throw him off his counterpart, and just as he had grabbed Derek from behind, something skittered across the floor to Emily. With a final blow to incapacitate her former superior, Emily reached for the weapon Derek had thrown her.

The weight of it was comfortable in her grip, and the curve of the trigger familiar beneath her finger. The kickback was fierce, even, but Emily was certain it wasn't a bullet she fired.

Nonetheless, it got the job done. The agent had seen her and unhanded Derek to reach for his own weapon, but nowhere near on time. Bullet or no, he dropped easily enough with a hole between his eyes.

Luckily, Derek had had his eyes on his attacker's weapon since the moment he had been able to turn and face him; otherwise, JJ would have gotten to it first. He snatched it as she dove for it, and JJ recoiled, her hands raised in front of her in surrender.

The sight of the familiar blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes had visibly shaken Derek; he blinked a few times as if trying to clear his vision and shook his head. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, but he kept his weapon trained on her. Emily, behind him now, had turned to focus her attention elsewhere: on the workstation in the back corner of the room.

"Garcia."

Emily shook her head as the woman she had loved like a sister backed towards the computer that would alert the entire Network of two renegades at large. "Don't do it, Penelope."

"You know I have to, Kitten." Every once in a while, a shadow would fall across her face, and the features Emily was sure she knew as well as her own would melt to an indistinct grey. It made Emily want to vomit.

"Please," she choked, desperate. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm sorry, Emily. It's what I'm here for."

Penelope retreated the final step to the workstation. As she reached for the screen there, another shadow obscured her features. Emily held her breath and pulled the trigger. Letting out something in between a cry and a gasp, she turned away before she could see her friend fall.

Derek, looking shaken, still had JJ at gunpoint. Emily's hand grazed his elbow as she led the way hurriedly to the exit, and he backed up to follow, keeping JJ in his sights. Her lovely blue eyes followed him almost serenely, but Derek was becoming less and less unnerved by them each second. Because although they looked for all the world like his cherished friend's, JJ's eyes would have had something behind them that was distinctly JJ, and these… these were empty.

Still, he hesitated at the door as Emily pulled it open for them. He needn't have. Emily squeezed her eyes shut, taking a single deep breath in, and by the time she opened them it was anger rather than desperation that allowed her to take the final shot.

Derek could have laughed as they tumbled out of the room he had awoken in and into a very familiar bullpen. Emily must have noticed his expression because she gave him a funny look as she led him down a back staircase.

"DC Headquarters," Derek explained as if it were obvious. "Might not be Quantico, but Emily, we know this place."

And it was a good thing, too, because everything from then on was a blur to her: the guard's barely-spoken challenge to her before he crumpled, leaving Derek standing in his place; the surreal feeling of waking from a very long dream as they burst through the front doors into a dead city; the realization as the freezing drops stung her face and chilled her body to the bone that it was raining still and not yet light out even though it felt as if she had spent an eternity inside that building. Derek must have noticed her falter as he finished hastily fastening the fallen guard's pants around his waist because the next thing she knew her hand was gripped firmly in his, and he was pulling her confidently through the sodden, darkened streets.

They ran until the adrenaline started wearing off and Derek's already weakened limbs nearly gave out. Under the dubious shelter of a leaky overpass, they caught their breath in silence, both sinking to the ground with their backs against the freezing concrete support beam. After he had managed to gather his energy, Derek turned to Emily and reached out to caress her cheek with his fingers, as if unconvinced she was truly beside him.

"You're shivering," he told her softly.

Emily barely reacted. "So are you," she observed, rightly.

"Are you okay?"

At this, she opened her mouth, then closed it, shook her head, and opened it again. "Penelope," she sighed. "JJ…" She tensed and balled her fists against the whimper in her voice. "All they were were lies and illusions. But somehow knowing that doesn't make it any easier."

"Emily, no," Derek soothed, reaching for her instinctually. "They might have been illusions, but their friendship wasn't. Those girls love you. They're waiting for you to come home."

Slowly, Emily dragged her eyes from where she had been staring straight ahead of her and faced him, her expression still shell-shocked. "Tell me," she whispered, nearly wincing at her own words. She took a shuddering breath, then continued more strongly. "I want to know what happened."

He nodded, refusing to take his eyes off her, as if she would run the moment he looked away. "You went into labour a few weeks early," he began slowly. "It wasn't anything too concerning, and Reid had already memorized all the books he was likely to get on the subject, so we were about as prepared as we were gonna be." Derek couldn't help but give her a small smile. "You, on the other hand, were having some difficulty adjusting to the idea."

When Derek returned home to unmistakable shrieking, his heart nearly stopped for a full few seconds.

Hotch's low, calm voice floated around the corner, barely audible above the commotion coming from his room. "Garcia, maybe you should come out here and give Reid some room."

"No!" Derek had no difficulty hearing Emily bellow as she cut him off. "No, if Reid is spending the foreseeable future staring at my vagina, then I'm entitled to moral suppo—fuck!"

Derek ran for the room he shared with Emily to find Hotch shutting the door while whispering something to Rossi beside him. He threw it back open to find Emily looking terrified and pissed off, pressing her back into the headboard of their bed like a trapped animal. She was dressed in what appeared to be a men's work shirt—long enough to give her some privacy even with nothing else on—and Derek made a mental note to thank whomever it was who had donated it. JJ stood on her far side holding one hand, while Penelope tutted and fretted, using a wet cloth to wipe the sweat from Emily's forehead and looking about ready to jump out of her skin from anxiety and excitement. Reid was frozen at the foot of the bed, wearing medical gloves but looking as if he had no idea what to do with them, and appearing just as one might after receiving a verbal lashing from Emily Prentiss.

Emily's eyes softened and widened when she noticed him, and the pain he saw in them made his chest clench. "Derek," she whimpered, holding out the hand nearest to him. She panted a few times as he rushed to her and took it firmly in his. "This isn't supposed to happen," she moaned, her eyes pleading with him.

At this, Derek had to grin at her. "Oh no?" he said, wiping a sweaty clump of hair off her forehead. "What was it you were expecting, Princess?"

But Emily wasn't seeing the humour. She shook her head firmly. "Not now. Not like this."

He could see JJ give Emily a sympathetic smile and rub her forearm reassuringly, but Emily just cried out and swore again as another contraction hit her. She collapsed against him when the wave of agony began to subside, burying her face in the crook of her neck. "You sure took your sweet ass time getting here," she keened. "Why are you so late?"

"I'm sorry Baby," Derek soothed. "I didn't know. I'm here now. We're gonna meet this little guy together." He went to kiss the top of her head, but Emily groaned and pulled away, flopping back against the pillows piled against the headboard. "Screw you," she bit out. "You think I give a rat's ass about that right now? I nearly broke JJ's hand waiting for you, and she's not the one who deserves it."

He chuckled softly and stroked her hair. "Well, Sweetness, at the rate you're going now I think JJ's well on her way to getting her revenge, so she might forgive you." Emily opened her mouth to respond, but a contraction took her breath away.

Spencer, looking a little desperate, appeared to be weighing his options. He looked from Emily, barely coherent from pain, to Derek, who looked like he on the brink of both bursting into tears and running, shouting, around the building. "Morgan," he whispered, urgently. "I—I really need to—"

"NO." He was cut off by Emily. "No, Reid, you don't need to do anything," she pleaded. "Just make it stop."

Spencer shook his head, wide-eyed, but the amount of force he managed to put behind his voice was impressive. "I can't make it stop, Emily."

Surprisingly, it seemed to calm her a little bit. She took two more shaky breaths, closed her eyes, and gave a small nod. Derek turned away to focus on Emily as Reid lifted the thin sheet covering her and reached a gloved hand between her legs. He winced as whatever the younger man was doing caused her face to contort with pain and her eyes to tear.

A few seconds later, Reid withdrew his hand. "Okay," he said, his brows still knit in concentration. "The next contraction… I think you need to start pushing."

Derek blinked. "You think?"

But Emily was already speaking over him. She shook her head, and a few tears finally spilled down her cheeks. "No, I can't," she protested. "I'm not ready yet."

"Yes you are," Spencer argued softly, a sweet, almost naïve smile forming on his lips. "You're Emily. You're ready for anything."

Emily was still shaking her head in denial when the next contraction tore an agonized cry from her, but Spencer's voice cut through it, commanding now, telling her to push, push!

Emily pushed.

It took just over 40 minutes.

It was 40 minutes of tears and sweat and cries that cut through Derek as if the pain that caused them were his own, and it ended in a rush of blood and a different cry that he was sure was the most wonderful sound he would ever hear.

"It's, uh—it's a girl," Reid announced, breathless, as he and JJ cleared her mouth and nose and quickly cleaned her off with a sheet.

"A girl?" Emily echoed, dazed, as she struggled to sit up higher. Garcia, practically vibrating, squealed, kissed Emily sloppily on the cheek, squeezed the breath out of Derek for a second, and ran out of the room to tell the others. JJ grinned. Deftly undoing a few buttons on Emily's shirt, she deposited the tiny, squalling thing onto the exposed skin of her chest and covered both of them with the sheet for warmth. "It's about time we had another lady around here," she said and gave Emily a gentle hug before going to meet Penelope outside.

"Oh my God," Emily breathed, seeming to come slightly out of her daze when she felt her baby's skin against hers. "She's amazing."

Derek let out a breathless laugh. "She's perfect," he declared, and pressed a kiss to the side of Emily's neck. "You did it."

Emily finally tore her eyes from the tiny bundle on her breast as her baby's wails settled into little whimpers. She met Derek's eyes, and the glaze of remembered panic melted away completely from her expression. She broke out into an astonished, elated grin. "I did, didn't I?" she asked, her voice still hoarse. She looked down at her baby again. "What if I drop her? I'm tired…"

Derek laughed. "You're not going to drop her," he scoffed, and kissed her again. After a few minutes of stroking the tiny head, he looked around, realizing for the first time that they were alone in the room. "You wanna let everyone meet her before you fall asleep? Penelope's probably frothing at the mouth by now."

Emily nodded absently, the dreamy look in her eyes making him suspect she would agree to just about anything at that point as long as she could keep holding the tiny body to her. The smile didn't leave her face as their family filed in, cooing their greetings to their newest member and issuing heartfelt congratulations to Derek and Emily. "So, what's her name?" Rossi asked, and Emily looked taken aback for a second.

"I dunno," she admitted. "She doesn't have one yet."

Rossi frowned. "Little girl like this needs a name," he admonished. "The next generation needs to know what to call their fearless leader."

Emily laughed. "Well, it won't be Fearless Leader, but we'll get on it," she assured him.

It wasn't an issue for long, though, since Garcia had already come up with several pet names of varying levels of ridiculousness, and for the moment everyone seemed content to call her Little Bear for the panda hat with little black ears that Garcia had knit in anticipation of her arrival. Upon seeing it a few weeks earlier, Emily had simply raised her eyebrows (reluctant to admit that it actually was kind of cute,) to which Penelope had responded unrepentantly that "aside from the little critter you're about to pop out, baby pandas are the most adorable little bundles of black-and-white happiness in the world."

Somewhat surprisingly, it was also Garcia who first noticed Emily's gaze becoming more and more distant with exhaustion and ushered everyone out of the room, though she herself dallied and fretted for a while before closing the door behind her.

Once they were alone again, Derek turned back to Emily and couldn't help but beam at her, the sight of his partner and his daughter cuddled together still taking his breath away. Emily returned the expression tiredly.

"So?" He asked her. "What do you think?"

"'Bout what?"

"What are we gonna call her? She can't be Little Bear forever."

"Mmm," Emily murmured. "I don't really mind… Frances? Rebecca?" She began to nod off but caught herself.

Derek nuzzled her and grinned. "You really didn't like Shakira?"

She smiled distractedly. "Definitely not Shakira… Derek?"

"Yeah, Babe."

"Maybe you should take her for a while… I—I'm afraid I'm going to drop her."

"Emily, I promise you won't drop her." But he took the now sleeping baby from her and cradled her to his chest, watching as if enchanted as her tiny nose crinkled at the shift in position.

Emily looked as if she was having as much difficulty tearing her eyes from her as he was, and she reached over to touch her baby, missing her warmth already even while battling the exhaustion that was threatening to overwhelm her.

When her hand finally fell away beside her and her head nodded again, Derek began to relax knowing how desperately she needed to sleep. She started one last time, though, and murmured softly after a sharp intake of breath, "Grace… Grace."

Surprised, Derek was about to respond, but her eyes had slid closed again, and now that he thought about it, had there been something that bothered him just a little in how limp she had become, and had she really been quite that pale before?

Careful not to jostle the baby, he reached his free hand to squeeze her cool, limp one. "Em?" He whispered, shaking it. "Hey…" She remained alarmingly still aside from the quick, shallow puffs of breath that he allowed to reassure him marginally.

"Emily?" His hand moved to her cheek, cool and damp and—he was sure of it now—impossibly pale. "Emily. Baby, wake up." His heart was so close to his throat he was sure it would choke him, and Grace began to fuss now against his chest. Derek didn't pause to reflect on exactly when in the last few seconds the name had solidified in his mind as his daughter's.

"Emily." He shook her, then shook her again, harder. "Come on, Beautiful, wake up for me," he pleaded, but it was then that he noticed the dark, wet stain that flowered out from beneath her and was quickly making its way towards the edge of the comforter on which she lay, and he knew that his pleas would go unanswered. "Reid," he tried to call out, but his voice came out thin and strangled. "Reid!"

The anguish in his voice must have been clearly audible because a slightly breathless Reid threw the door open a moment later with JJ close behind, her brow knitted with worry. Derek stood, frozen, one arm supporting the minute but precious weight of his now wailing daughter, the other reaching for his lover, and powerless to help either one. "JJ," he managed to choke, not daring to move his eyes from Emily's still form. Wordlessly, JJ took Grace into her arms and began to soothe her. With both arms now free, Derek took Emily's hand and clasped it to his chest, using his opposite hand to caress her clammy cheek and forehead. "Reid?" He gritted his teeth and forced himself to look over at the younger man. Derek couldn't tell exactly what he was doing beneath the sheet that covered her, but there was no mistaking the fear and helplessness in his eyes. Spencer simply gave him a bewildered shrug and a tiny shake of the head, as if begging him not to ask, then turned his attention back to Emily.

Derek could feel his face crumble. "Emily," he practically whimpered, clutching her to him. "No, Emily." It was only after a few gasping sobs and gulps for air that he trusted his voice again. "Can you fix her?" He asked waveringly.

"I don't—It could be—"

"Reid, can you fix her?"

"I don't know! Maybe, Derek… I—I'm trying."

Derek closed his eyes, filled his lungs, and, as he let the air blow shakily past his lips, willed the panic to escape with it. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he rested her forehead in the crook of his neck, gathered her up, and began to stand. It wasn't until a collective cry of protest went up around him that he realized how many people were hovering around the room.

"Morgan," Rossi growled warningly. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm taking her to a hospital." Rossi could posture all he wanted to.

"But…that may as well be suicide," JJ's voice cut in. "We'll never see either of you again!"

"There are clinics," he insisted. "Sympathetic to the Resistance. We took Richter to one."

"That was over a week ago," Kevin spoke up, almost apologetically, from the doorway where he squeezed a crying Penelope more closely into his side. "It's probably Bureau territory by now."

Derek merely set his jaw and refused to look at any of them. He started toward the door.

Hotch stepped in front of him. "Derek," he tried to reason with him, calmly but firmly. "Why don't you let Reid try to help her?"

Finally, he broke. "No, fuck that, Hotch," he spat. "You have any idea the shit she went through to get here? I'm not wasting any more fucking time on maybe."

There was a scuffle behind him as Derek exited the room and stalked down the hallway, and he couldn't have cared less who he was pissing off if it meant doing something, anything, to help Emily. Finally, Hotch's voice called after him again.

"Morgan." Derek ignored it. "Morgan!" And his footsteps quickened to overtake him until again, Hotch forced himself in front of him. "Okay," he conceded, having to walk backwards in order to accommodate Derek's uncompromising advance. "We go see if we can get her help. But, Derek, I'm coming with you."

There was a long moment during which the only sound was the rain splashing onto the overpass above and the low ground surrounding them. Derek took a deep, shaky breath before continuing.

"We found you a clinic easily enough," he explained. "Kevin… Kevin was right. They wouldn't let me go back with you, and I was so beside myself at that point that I didn't even fight it. But when I asked for an update…" Derek squeezed his eyes shut against the painful memory. "You weren't just gone. It was like you had never existed." He shook his head, his eyes haunted. "After that… I don't remember much. Just that a couple weeks later I decided if I wanted you back, I was going to have to go in after you."

At this, Emily's body started. "A couple weeks?"

Derek shrugged. "A little less, maybe," he replied, distracted, until he noticed her expression. "Wh—how long was it for you?"

Her mouth opened, but it seemed to take her a few seconds to figure out what the right answer was. "Years," she said, finally. "I don't know. All those moments… lost in time." Her breath hitched and she sniffed a little, but with the rainwater still dripping down her face it was impossible to tell if she was crying. He studied her until she dragged her eyes from the blackness in front of them. Now that she was facing him, he could see the trepidation in them.

"Grace," she whispered, and Derek's heart simultaneously broke and warmed over. He beamed at her even while tears formed in his eyes and started to spill over his cheeks.

"She's beautiful, Emily. And she needs her Mommy."

And then Emily did start to cry.

They had moved. Emily balked momentarily at the non-descript basement door nestled in an industrial area of town to which Derek had led her. "I compromised you," she murmured, stricken.

Derek only squeezed her hand more tightly and brought her fingers to his lips. "We just had to take precautions," he assured her, tapping out the familiar code pattern of four knocks onto the heavy, steel door. It opened almost immediately.

"Derek, Man," Will uttered, clapping him on the back while Emily flew past him and into Reid's arms. "JJ swore up and down you'd bring her back, but I was gettin' damn worried. Emily," he breathed in relief and embraced her as she reluctantly pulled away from Reid. "So glad you're home."

And then the tears began again because Emily turned to find her nose buried in soft, blonde hair, and JJ and Penelope were before her, alive, and real, and as she clutched them to her it was like getting to say 'I'm sorry' and 'I missed you' and 'I love you' all at the same time. She never got as far as opening her mouth, though, because Rossi emerged from a back room carrying a tiny bundle in his arms, and words quickly became meaningless.

Silently, Rossi deposited the fussing baby into her arms, and Grace almost immediately began rooting at her breast. Emily's eyes blurred even more, and she hiccoughed on a sob. Sniffing, she allowed Rossi to kiss the crown of her head and place his arms gently around her, transfixed all the while by the tiny, squirming thing in her arms.

Hours later, Derek returned from preparing for bed in the bathroom to find Emily in nearly the same position, sitting on the corner of the mattress they would now share with her back to the wall, staring in wonder at her daughter as she slept. Chuckling, he slid in to sit beside her, placing a tender kiss on her temple as his only greeting. They enjoyed the silence together for a few moments, simply acknowledging the awe they were both feeling at actually being there, all three of them, together.

"She's so tiny," Emily breathed after a while. "When you said she was—" she paused, swallowing—"I thought I had missed my chance. It didn't matter, as long as she was alive, but I just… I thought I'd missed this."

Derek only shook his head. "I think it's right around your due date now, actually." Emily responded with a dreamy smile without taking her eyes off Grace, and Derek laughed softly again.

"You're going to have to put her to bed eventually, you know," he said, nudging her gently with his shoulder.

Emily laughed. "I can't let her go," she admitted. She offered him a self-deprecating smile, but it wasn't hard to notice the hint of something vulnerable and scared behind it. "It just doesn't seem real… I keep thinking I'm going to eventually have to give her back."

Derek absorbed this for a moment before turning to her more fully. "You don't have to let her go, Emily. And you never have to give her back. She's yours."

"Ours," Emily corrected him softly, smiling as Grace let out a yawn and stroking a tiny fist with her thumb.

Derek was unprepared for the surge of emotion it sent through him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked back the tears that had formed too quickly for him to stop it. "Em," he whispered, nearly breathless with a sudden sense of urgency. Silently, he pleaded with her to understand. "You knew, right?"

Emily's thumb stilled over Grace's fist, and she paused for a second. "I did," she said, and then turned finally to face him. "I do."

And Derek let the tears fall. "I love you," he choked, taking her face between his hands and forcing her to look into his eyes. "I love you. Always, Emily. I love you."