Emily Prentiss One-Shots

Emily/Derek

Title - next to your heartbeat where I should be - drivingmishcrazy (Ao3)

Summary: for the criminal minds Valentine's Day fan fiction contest! Mid season 7 setting: Things have been tense between Derek and Emily since her return from Paris, and going undercover as a couple for a case forces them to address the rift between them.

Rating - Teens and Up Audience

~
~
~
~

"You sure you're up for this, princess?"

Emily Prentiss shot Derek Morgan a pointed look from the passenger side of the car. Of course they were the ones Hotch picked to go undercover. They were in Vermont on a case and as soon as Garcia had figured out that the unsub was targeting victims who'd participated in a couples' weekend retreat put on by a local resort, Emily had known it was going to be them. Hotch himself had admitted that the two of them made the most sense, a statement that she didn't particularly feel like unpacking at the moment. It wasn't that she hated the idea of pretending to be Derek Morgan's fiancée, if she had to do it with anyone on the team, she was glad it was him, but things were still weird between them.

She'd thrown herself into repairing her relationships with the team ever since she had returned from Paris, and she had spent extra time rebuilding that trust with Derek in particular. Yet while Derek had shown her the utmost grace, there was a barrier on both sides of their friendship now that hadn't been there before. He acted like he was afraid Emily would evaporate if he dared to touch her. Emily, for her part, was so preoccupied with convincing Derek that she wouldn't break in his hands that she couldn't bring herself to let her guard down enough to show him how fragile she really was.

All of that was way too much to try and explain to Hotch, though, so for the next two and a half days, they would pretend to be the entire world to one another. Simple, right?

"So what's our background story again?" Emily asked. "I wanna get this straight before we go in there."

"Alright, we met six years ago." Derek said, going over the cover story for the hundredth time. "We were together for two years, took a break, realized we still loved each other and now we're engaged."

"That seems specific."

Derek lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug and titled his head. "Most convincing lies have a grain of truth to them, right?" He said. "Makes it easier to keep it all straight if there's elements of our actual friendship in there."

"Makes sense." Emily nodded. "Keep it simple, you're less likely to make a mistake. Let's just hope our unsub isn't as careful. You ready?"

"One more thing." Derek pulled out the fake engagement ring that Rossi had loaned them for the occasion. Neither agent wanted to know why he had just happened to have a ring on him. "I'd be a pretty bad fake fiancé if I let you walk in there without this big ass rock on your finger."

"Say what you want about David Rossi." She muttered. "But don't say he doesn't have impeccable taste in jewelry."

"Yeah, well Rossi's had practice." He chuckled. "Come on, princess. It's showtime."

Checking in was easy. They were in a couples suite, which meant they would have to share a bed. Derek had turned to look at her and quirked an eyebrow, as if to ask 'you good with this?' which made Emily roll her eyes in response to say 'it's not as if we haven't ever had to share before' . That much was true; they'd doubled up out of necessity in the past or after a few too many during their movie nights they would collapse into the same bed, too tired and drunk to keep up any pretense of propriety. Nothing had ever happened between them, besides sloppy drunken flirting that they never addressed. The particulars of this current case changed nothing.