Morgan chanced another look over to Reid who was sitting silently next to him on the jet, on their way home. He was worried, but that was nothing new. Morgan was rarely not worrying for his genius, especially when cases were hard. But even this one had been worse than normal. It had been personal for Reid. He'd identified with the UNSUB and that was always rough.
Morgan didn't quite understand. He was more used to identifying with the victims, having been one for half of his childhood and then some. He knew Reid had suffered his own plight, via vicious and cruel acts of harassment and abuse, but he'd also had the added detriment of growing up having to battle his mother's mental illness completely on his own, leaving him no one to lean on or take comfort from. And with quite a few of their UNSUBS suffering from mental illness themselves, that was just another chip on the kid's shoulder.
Unfortunately, this one had seemed to encompass all of the above, serving to hit the all-too-young agent twice as hard. Their UNSUB, Kevin Haltman, had been something of a genius himself as a child. Not quite to Reid's level but fairly close to it. And where Reid's level of acute Asperger's was only somewhat noticeable and easily maintained, Hartman's had been severe and poorly dealt with. In other words, his condition had been completely ignored as a youth by an uninformed and ignorant mother, meaning he had been denied the education and emotional support needed for someone with his condition. He'd been maliciously teased, humiliated, and brutally beaten by his peers on a daily basis. Given the circumstances, it was almost hard to fault the poor man for what he had been turned into.
Almost.
All Morgan needed to do was look at the crime scene photos of the victims to no longer feel pity for the one who had dispensed such rage, such suffering, on people who had been the focus and cause of his vengeance, as well as innocent others who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Morgan had seen no problem in bringing that monster down by any means necessary if that was what it took to keep anyone else from being the victim to his misguided rage.
Reid, however, hadn't agreed and had gotten into arguments with several people during the course of the case – his own team included – pleading the UNSUB's situation. That they should exhaust every avenue that could bring him in alive and get him the help he so desperately needed before ever even considering the alternative, arguing that it wasn't Hartman's fault that he was doing what he was doing. That if he had just gotten the care and attention he'd needed as a child, that he would have turned out differently.
Of course, no one could know that for sure but Reid had been adamant. And though Morgan couldn't find it in himself to agree with him, he couldn't fault Reid for thinking along those lines. Was even proud of him for holding onto his view so passionately, even when no one else seemed to be on his side.
Then it had all come to a head when they'd pinpointed Hartman's location and they'd rushed to the childhood home he was barricading himself and his mother in. It had been a routine hostage negotiation until, somehow, Reid had managed to get his hands on the phone and had started to build a rapport. He'd played to the victim in Hartman, letting him know that there was at least one person on his side, who understood, who even wanted no further harm to come to him or anyone else.
Morgan's blood had run cold when he'd heard Hartman request that Reid talk with him face-to-face and unaccompanied. Of course, the entire team had voiced their aversion to such a move, but Reid had agreed to it before anyone could stop him. Morgan had begged with Reid, then Hotch to not allow this to be the deciding factor on how this ended. But Hotch, though not at all happy with the way it had transpired, knew it was the only way to end this as quickly as possible. And he trusted Reid.
As did Morgan, of course, but that didn't mean that he hadn't been terrified and furious as he'd watched Reid slowly approach the front door to the house, arms up, Kevlar firmly strapped to his chest, and completely alone.
The longest seconds of Morgan's life had ticked by, one after another, as he'd been forced to sit and wait, unable to see or hear what was happening behind those walls where the man he loved had been facing off with a troubled and rage filled murderer who was angry at the world and everyone in it. Hotch and Prentiss had both kept a hand on Morgan in what any outsider might deem was support, but he knew that they were ensuring he stay put and not rush in after the youngest member of their team, which had been all he could think about as every muscle under his skin had been practically vibrating with a need to go be by his love's side. Or better yet between Reid and that madman.
He couldn't recall just how long it had been before he'd heard the ear-splitting cracks of two bullets being discharged and he'd felt his entire body go numb, even as he acknowledged his feet pounding on the ground as he raced to the door, kicking it in, his own gun raised and voice shouting. What he'd been shouting, he still wasn't sure. All he found himself caring about was the fact that he saw a hysterical woman in one corner of the room, smoking gun in her hand, and two men piled on the ground, motionless, in a quickly growing puddle of blood.
JJ and Rossi had gone to care for the woman while Morgan made quick work of lifting Hartman from Reid's body. Seeing so much blood on the man he'd held in his arms just that morning had caused Morgan to panic and desperately search for the source of the wound so he could stop the bleeding. It certainly hadn't helped that Reid just stared unseeingly at the ceiling, unresponsive to the voices surrounding him or the hands touching him. In hindsight, Morgan should have recognized the clear signs of shock, but at the time, his mind had been far too fogged with panic and desperation to see anything past the dark red puddle coloring his unnaturally still partner.
It took Hotch shouting at Morgan that not all of the blood was Reid's for the darker man to finally calm just enough to actually see that Hotch was right. Reid had been shot, but it was a shoulder hit, through one of the few patches the Kevlar didn't cover. It was painful as hell and marginally immobilizing but he'd live, so long as he got treatment relatively soon.
Which he had, seeing as they'd already had an ambulance on scene, and with the UNSUB dead and the mother shaken but uninjured, Reid had been given priority care.
Morgan had stayed with him, under the guise of, "You are going to the damn hospital, I don't care if you know for a fact that no major bodily systems were compromised!"
At least, Morgan was sure that that was what Reid would have argued if he had managed to keep himself together. Instead, he'd barely said a word. To anyone. Even the paramedics who had been trying to gauge if there was any severe head trauma. And that scared Morgan, the utterly unusual quietness from the other, because he knew what that meant.
His walls were going up.
Talking had always been Reid's stress relief. Excited, nervous, embarrassed, scared, Reid would talk and talk and talk about seemingly nothing and everything all at once until he'd managed to collect his thoughts enough to be part of the group again. Or until someone shushed him, either way. It helped him.
It was when he was miserable that he'd clam himself up, shut everyone out, seemingly as a way to protect himself, his mind still in the process of accepting that he had a fully functioning support system now to do the protecting and healing for him in his most vulnerable times.
Morgan chanced another look at the young doctor at his side who still had barely uttered more than the necessary 'yes's and 'no's to get them on the jet and on their way home. Now, here they were. Reid just as silently brooding. Morgan just as protectively concerned.
Yes, Reid had gotten out alive, and yes, he was deemed 'lucky' by every cop and doctor they came into contact with on their way out of the city that the bullet had been a through-and-through and had needed nothing more than a thorough cleaning, six stitches, and a sling for at least two weeks. But Morgan knew all too well that the light at the end of the tunnel was still dim and quite a ways off yet.
Looking at his love now, so quiet and still, staring out into the black on the other side of the window, he could imagine what was going through his partner's head. Running through the encounter over and over, reexamining every word, searching for every hidden meaning behind every inflection, decoding every bit of body language he could remember seeing, looking for every place that he had gone wrong to let it end so fatally, utterly unwilling to believe that he wasn't to blame for how it had ended and that he had done everything he could.
Morgan wanted to pull him out of that headspace and engage him in anything else. Talking about their upcoming wedding, about Henry and Michael, hell he'd even play a damn round a chess if he had to. Anything to keep Reid from going in circles in his own mind. And a few years ago, he might have just tried one of those avenues. But a decade of experience now told him that that would only push Reid to bury himself deeper into his thoughts. As much as it pained Morgan, he knew he had to let Reid work it out on his own, at least for a while. There would come a time for Morgan to intervene, and intervene he would. But until then, he'd do the only thing he could.
Slowly but with enough movement to alert Reid it was coming, Morgan gently wrapped his large hand around Reid's long one and held on. Reid didn't respond to the contact, but Morgan hadn't expected him to. He just wanted to show Reid that he wasn't alone, and when he was ready, Morgan would be right there waiting. Just like always. He knew that his message had been made clear when Reid didn't flinch away.
Morgan took comfort in the connection and sat back in his chair, not letting go for the remainder of the flight.