A/n this was written as an answer to a challenge from relly252. It follows canon up to Revelations and we can assume that Reid and JJ have been together for awhile. Please give me your thoughts and suggestions

Morgan tossed aside the file he was working on from their last case in San Diego CA. He'd finally finished his paperwork and he should be out the door. His phone beeped and he looked down at the caller ID. He smiled widely and opened his phone. "Hey sweetness, I'm right downstairs why are you calling me?"

"We got serious problems sweet thing!"

He dropped his feet off the desk with a thud and sat up straight. "What's the matter Penelope?"

"Hey… don't talk like someone ran over your puppy, it's not work related."

He sagged back into his chair and put his hand over his face. "Mama don't do that, you scared me to death."

"I'm sorry big guy, but I had to get your attention. Why don't you bring your sweet face up to my office, we have to talk."

"I thought we were talking, you see these ingenious speaking tubes allow us to have a conversation with out actually being face to face. It's a wonderful new fangled invention." He could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. What would she say to that?

"Morgan…"

"I did it… didn't I… I finally rendered you speechless." He was delighted with himself. Way to go Derek!

"Morgan just come up to my office, we have to help find a way to divert a disaster in the making."

"Baby girl I never knew you could be some melodramatic." He'd gotten up and was walking up the stairs to her office.

"I'm not being melodramatic sugar; we have a real problem to solve."

"Why don't you enlighten me," Morgan said from the doorway, smirking at her. Damn she was gorgeous; he was beginning to think it was time to ask her out on a real date.

"Shut the door baby cakes."

He shut it and said, "What is so important that you call me away from my plans for the evening?"

"Reid and JJ," she said impatiently.

"What about them, I thought all was well. In fact seeing them together is completely nauseating."

"That a wonderfully romantic assessment Mr. Cynic."

He shut his phone and leaned against her desk. She was watching him in the reflection of one of her babies instead of looking at him directly.

"You can't tell me that their constant hand holding, and making out in her office doesn't get to you. I swear to God, I thought I might actually go blind when I walked in on them the other day."

"Sugar, you're just jealous." She continued to make her babies purr under the tapping of her fingers on the keyboards.

"Okay, so I'm jealous, you would be too if you had to sleep in a hotel room next to theirs and hear them go at it all night. I know Hotch put me next to them on purpose during this last trip. Who knew Reid had so much stamina? Did you know that JJ is a screamer? Who would have thought it by looking at her?" He walked up to her, and turned around so he could lean up against her desk and get her attention on him, instead of her computers.

"Gorgeous, I don't want to hear about my friends' sexual escapades, we have a problem to deal with that's much more important than that."

He sighed and asked with what he thought was infinite patience. "For the last time, what's the big emergency?"

"I was just talking to Reid, and he let it slip that he wants to ask JJ to marry him."

Morgan grinned widely and ran a hand over her left arm. She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. What he saw in her eyes made his heart begin to pound out the Hallelujah Chorus.

"Baby girl I highly doubt that he "let it slip" I think he came in here, and you sweet talked it out of him when you saw that he was freaked, am I right?" He knew he was right.

She pushed away from him and turned to another computer. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He wanted to follow her and touch her again but he stayed where he was, watching her as she played with her babies.

"Hey… you want to mess with your computers or do you want to spill what's bothering you?"

"Morgan you know we can't leave this to Reid, he'll mess it up." She continued to find excuses not to look at him. He moved again to stand in her line of sight.

"Girl, stay still and look at me. This isn't about Reid; he can handle his own romantic problems. Come on… let's go get a beer."

"I can't, I have work to do baby cakes, you'll just have to -"

He cut her off by leaning down and capturing her mouth for a kiss. He meant it to get her attention, but then he found himself getting into the kiss as it deepened and her hands wrapped around his neck. She moaned and he immediately broke it off and pulled away from her.

"What was that," she asked him a clear accusation in her voice and tears collecting in her eyes.

"I kissed you; you do know what a kiss is, right?" He made his voice deliberately light because of the butterflies in his stomach.

Wait… a minute since when are you nervous with a woman my friend?

She stood and pushed him back out of her way. "Stop teasing me Derek I don't find it funny at all!"

He pulled her back up close to him and kissed her, hard. She stumbled and fell back into her chair when he let her go. His blood was hot and his heart was beating so hard he thought it was possible he might faint.

"Why are you doing this?" The genuine confusion in her voice made him angry with himself. He shouldn't have kissed her like that, but God… he'd wanted to do that for so long.

"Don't be mad angel, I promise I didn't mean to do that, I just wanted to…"

"What, you wanted to what, make a fool out of me; tease me so that I stop talking about Reid. Do you want me to keep pining away for you because it feeds your football field size ego?" The tears that had filled her eyes now spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

He reached over to wipe them away and she flinched away from him like he meant to slap her. "I'm sorry Penelope, I really do like you. I didn't intend for this to happen this way."

"I could almost believe you but -" he watched her twist her hands in her lap, her computers apparently forgotten in her distress.

He reached out again and wiped a thumb under one eye and then the other. "I'm sorry baby girl, I never meant to hurt you, please just go get a beer with me. Let's talk, about us and I suppose we'll deal with Reid's issues as well."

She smiled the smile he loved and stood up. He took her hand and led her out of her office. Oh yeah, they were going to talk alright, but he hoped Reid wouldn't be part of the conversation.

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"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you, or am I going to have to drag it out of you? If I have to force it out of you it won't be pretty." JJ asked as she entered the living room from their bedroom where she'd dumped her bag.

"Nothing's wrong, I just don't feel like talking. I just wish I never had to see the things we saw in San Diego, that's all." He wasn't looking at her which was always a bad sign.

"Spence, it was a hard case this time I know that, I had to deal with the parents and the media when we didn't save little Tina, how do you think that makes me feel?"

"Then you know why I don't want to talk, can't we just sit together and be silent for awhile." He sat down on the sofa in his living room and held out a hand to her.

She looked at his hand which had regained its steadiness now that he was off the Dilaudid. It hadn't been easy for him. The job, the drugs and his feelings for her had combined into a stress so large, that he overdosed and nearly died. She'd never forget the phone call from Hotch when Morgan had found him passed out in the men's room at Quantico.

She'd been so angry with him. The love she'd felt for him since his kidnapping by Henkel had been overpowering in its intensity when she thought he was lost to her. Watching him self destruct and not being able to do anything about it, had made her furious with him.

She took his hand and sat down next to him. She kicked off her heels and wiggled her toes in contentment. He put an arm around her and she snuggled into his chest, and put her feet up on the couch.

"Spence, please talk to me, I know something else is bothering you." Her left ear listened to the steady beat of his heart, which always soothed her.

"JJ will you trust me just one time I promise you'll know everything soon," He kissed the top of her head.

She looked up at him and saw that he was looking at the painting on the wall across the room. It was a seascape; the water threw itself onto a sandy shore as though trying to leave the ocean behind. The moon was full and bright, the artist had done something to the paint to make it seem to glow with inner light, which tempered the struggle of the black water on the shore. The stars glittered and the rock shone wetly in the star shine. It was beautiful.

"I know what you're thinking." He said when his eyes finally left the painting and he looked at her.

"What am I thinking?" She played with the dark blue tie he wore.

"You're wondering if I'm thinking about Dilaudid." He reached down to still the hand that was on his tie.

"No… I'm not thinking that, you went through rehab, you're clean. I trust you more than anyone else in my life." She ran a hand through his hair and down his face to rest on his cheek.

"I know you do. Please just leave it alone for now, I promise I'll tell you everything soon." He raised one hand to her face and pulled it up to kiss her long and deep. "Come to bed baby, I miss sleeping in our bed with you… beautiful."

She let him pull her to her feet. Even though she knew that he was hiding something, she let him get away with it for that night because she was too tired to try and get him to tell her. He would do it when he was ready, and it was up to her not to pressure him.

He led her down the hallway to their bedroom. He closed the door behind them and when he touched her, she forgot all of her fears for him in the heat of his embrace.

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Spencer lay on his back in the inky blackness of their bedroom. She had long since fallen asleep. He should've known better then to try and keep something from her. Ever since he'd gone through rehab and made it out the other side, she'd watched him. He didn't know if she realized she did it, or if it was just her way of trying to keep him safe from himself.

His hand stroked through her hair, she shifted her head on his bare chest and her arm tightened around him. Her breathing was deep and slow now, so he slipped out from under her and stood up. He felt around for his old dark blue terry cloth robe and slipped it on. His eyes had adjusted fully to the dark and he made his way out of the room and down the dark hallway to the living room.

He switched on the light and stood blinking and squinting against the yellow light for several minutes while his eyes adjusted. When they did, he looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it was two twenty seven am. He sighed loudly and kicked himself for his inability to forget his worries and actually sleep for a change.

He went to the closet and knelt down to shift a box of old tax forms, and a stack of medical journals to one side. He pulled a small black velvet box from underneath a loose edge of the carpet. He got up and backed out of the closet, closing the door on silent hinges.

He turned and trudged over to the sofa where they sat just four hours before. He looked up at the painting on the wall again. He let the box warm in his hand for several minutes while he studied the painting. He had tried for months to figure out why JJ had given it to him the day he left rehab. She told him he would figure it out eventually.

"What do you want me to see that I don't see JJ?" He said into the light, the light didn't answer back. Had he really expected that it would?

Sighing, he looked down at the small box, he ran a finger around the outside edges, relishing in the feeling of the fabric under his hand. He loved the texture of velvet, he didn't know why, he couldn't pull that out of his brain either. Maybe the painting and the touch of velvet were the same? Maybe they weren't, maybe he was sleep deprived and loosing his mind.

He opened the box and looked down at the ring nestled inside. The light shot through the one carat diamond in the center of the platinum setting. It was princess cut, JJ's favorite according to Garcia. The hacker would know, he hoped. He didn't want to make a mistake with the ring. He thought it would make her happy; after all he'd gone to seven jewelry stores looking for the perfect ring. He made the salespeople nuts with his questions about cut, color, clarity and carat weight, or the four C's of diamonds.

He finally found the right one. It was graded D for color, and VVS1 for clarity. He'd wanted one graded FL or flawless, but he couldn't find one that wasn't completely out of his price range. It was ideal cut; he could see it in the way the light refracted off the facets of the stone. He was happy with it and he hoped JJ would like it too.

He closed the box, and stood up to take it back to its hiding place. He had to figure out a way to ask her before she dug his secret out of him and ruined the surprise. He switched off the light and went back to the couch, stubbing his toe on the end of the coffee table. He stifled a scream of pain and hopped over to the couch, rubbing his toe and cursing under his breath. He sat there, forcing himself not to think while his eyes adjusted once more to the darkness and he could go back to bed.

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Morgan put his glass down on the table, and glared at Penelope who looked utterly serene. He'd come here to talk to her about their relationship and she'd spent the last two hours and two beers talking to him about Reid and JJ.

"Penelope, why do we have to come up with some elaborate scheme? Can't he just do the kneeling thing and ask her for God's sake."

"Sugar, you really don't know anything about women, do you? She asked, looking at him over the top of her beer and smirking. "You can't just pull a woman aside after work, and say "hey will you marry me" that just doesn't cut it anymore these days."

"Why not," He asked, thinking that she was lying to him and she just wanted part of Reid's glory for herself, after all this was Garcia, she loved to meddle in Reid's life.

"Because you can't okay," she said, looking around for the waiter.

"No, it's not okay!" Jesus, this was more complicated then catching Jack the Ripper had been. Oh wait, they never did catch him.

Man, why are you thinking in terms of work, can't you shut it off for one night?

He jumped when Garcia began to squeal, he had his gun halfway out of his shoulder holster when he noticed that she was waving someone over to the table. He relaxed and took his hand off his gun.

"Good God woman are you trying to kill me," He hissed at her, then he drank off the rest of his beer in one gulp.

She ignored this last comment and stood up to hug a very short, red haired woman with cinnamon colored eyes. She was curvy and she wore black leather pants a red lace blouse with long sleeves that was see through and left nothing to the imagination. He choked on the last of the beer.

"Special Agent Derek Morgan this is Erin a friend from college." The red head looked him over slowly then she turned and winked at Garcia.

"My God Pen, where did you find this gorgeous hunk of a man." Her accent was thick West Virginia.

"We work together," Something in her tone made him want to smirk, but he held out his hand to the woman instead.

"Nice to meet you," He said, being careful not to check her out, tonight was for him and Garcia he reminded himself.

"If I worked with someone that hot I'd never leave the office." Erin said lazily. She slid into the other side of the booth, extracted a cigarette out of the pack she slid out of her tiny purse, and ordered Gasoline from the waiter that had finally responded to Garcia's frantic waving He nodded curtly to her and she told him to keep them coming.

"Whoa, slow down girlfriend, I don't want to roll you outta here!" Penelope exclaimed, frowning at her friend. "Okay what's going on, you look like hell!"

"Thanks, I can always count on you Pen for a boost to my confidence." She ran a hand through her short spiked red hair, then lit the cigarette.

"And I can always tell when you're upset, you drink too much." Garcia reached over and grabbed her friends hand when she reached for the drink the waiter sat down in front of her.

"Pen, I'm here on a buying trip, and it didn't exactly go as planned. My supplier is an asshole who thinks the world revolves around him." She took a deep drag on the cigarette and blew a fast stream of smoke out of her pursed lips.

Garcia was staring at her like she just discovered the answer to cold fusion. Morgan, who'd kept silent during the exchange, began to get a really bad feeling about where this might be going.

"Erin you are the answer to my prayers, why didn't I see it before?" She had that smile, the one that convinced Morgan he was in big trouble. Shit, he should've stayed out of this!

"Girl what are you talking about," Erin asked after downing her drink.

So he listened to Penelope explain what she had in mind. At the end of the explanation, the women were ginning like idiots and he was convinced he should've gone home when he'd had the chance.