A/N: Hope you guys enjoy this! It's definitely an idea I've been toying around with for a while.
"Any last words?" Derek Morgan asked.
He pointed his gun at the unsub, watching as the man's eyes filled with fear at the thought of death. Derek hid a grin, though the man couldn't see anything anyway. They were in a dark basement, just the two of them, while the team hurried to Derek's side from across town.
He had been the one to find this serial killer. After trusting his gut on a whim, Derek had wound up in a wooded cottage with the unsub Jeremy Walkman, who the BAU had been tracking the last two weeks.
All Derek could think about was avenging Jeremy for the victims he had killed. He had murdered three families, each with children, and deserved to pay for what he had done.
"You won't shoot me," Jeremy said. "This is all a tactic to make me plead and beg for my life. I know you profilers."
"Keep thinking that," Derek snarled. "This is not a game Walkman. You killed innocent people and almost one of our own. Why wouldn't I shoot you?"
"Because you want me alive," he said in almost a whisper. "You want me to suffer like the victims suffered. You want me to serve life in prison."
"I could easily make you suffer with a gunshot. It doesn't have to be fatal."
"You may not be able to resist though, will you?" Jeremy gloated. "You want to pull that trigger so bad, but you know it'll be your ass if you do."
"Testing me isn't wise," Derek warned.
Suddenly Jeremy grinned. "Well, you won't be able to shoot me anyway. You won't be around to see me pay."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll be six feet under when we're finished with you," he said with a laugh.
Before Derek could answer or process that sentence, a blow to the head knocked him out cold. One of Jeremy's accomplices, someone the BAU didn't know about, had snuck in the back and rendered Morgan unconscious.
The sirens wailing outside drowned out all the other noise in the house, so the men had to shout to be heard by the other. The local law enforcement and FBI were on the scene.
"Let's go!" Jeremy yelled, quickly grabbing Derek's wallet and gun. The two men fled through the back just as the BAU kicked the door open.
It took them five minutes to find Derek. By then, a pool of blood had surrounded his head and he could barely keep from slipping away completely.
"Morgan!" he could hear. "Morgan, can you hear me?"
"Yes, yes!" he wanted to answer but couldn't. Derek was long gone in watery unconsciousness. He could barely hang on to life or whatever it was that he seemed to mentally cling to. It was almost like hanging off a cliff with one hand. If he let go, there was little chance, if any, of survival.
"What happened?" he heard Hotch ask. "Was he shot?"
Then JJ: "The paramedics are on their way. And no, he was hit in the head. Did you find a tourniquet Reid?"
Derek let their voices wash over him, happy to focus on what they were saying and not on answering. He heard Prentiss and Rossi talking in hushed voices about the unsub and how he could've outsmarted him. Something about the profile being off. How could Derek be tricked? He was a trained agent who dealt with unsubs almost every day. Something was amiss…
"Call Garcia," Rossi said. "Let her know our unsub has a partner in crime."
At the mention of Garcia, Derek felt his heart clench. She was going to be worried when she found out about his head injury. He wondered what she would do. Would she fly to South Carolina to see if he was all right? When he woke up, would she be sitting beside his hospital bed? It all sounded very likely. They were best friends after all.
Then he remembered his girlfriend Savannah. She would probably be the one to fly to South Carolina versus Garcia. Besides, they had a case to solve and unsub to catch whether Derek was hurt or not. Still, though, he wanted to wake up to Garcia's comfort over Savannah's. Garcia always knew how to make him feel better. Savannah, with her aloof ways, would offer little to no comfort at all.
Their voices seemed further away now. He could barely hear JJ talking on the phone or Reid's pacing anymore. All he could focus on was the thoughts racing through his head, which seemed to center on Garcia. What was she doing? Did she know yet? Had she found the unsub's partner in crime?
The last thing Derek heard before completely blacking out was the arrival of the paramedics.