Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
"What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now." – Unknown
o o o o
17 January, 2011
"Well hello gorgeous," Emily Prentiss muttered to herself and looked up when a fresh face walked through the glass doors into the bullpen area. Even with him looking down at the paper in his hand, Prentiss could tell he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever, and would ever, see off the silver screen. Silently begging he was a new employee, she pushed her chair away from her desk and winked at her co-worker and the owner of the adjourning desk, Dr. Spencer Reid, who'd noticed the newcomer as well, whispered a reminder about her boyfriend. "Hi. You look a little lost."
"Ha! That'd be because I am," the man looked up and Prentiss went a little weak at the knees when she saw his crystal blue-grey eyes. Those eyes, that tousled brown hair, and his cocky yet adorable smile combined with the way he looked in those jeans should be an illegal combination.
"I'm Emily Prentiss. I'm a member of Agent Hotchner's BAU team."
"It's nice to meet you. I'm James. James Murdoch."
"Good to meet you, James. Are you new to the BAU?" Prentiss ignored the way Reid coughed meaningfully and made a note to either throw something at him later or tell Calliope Sellers, Reid's fiancée, the next time he did something stupid. Besides, Eli had been deployed on another tour in the Middle East since the summer and she deserved a little flirting, didn't she? Why not with someone as gorgeous as this tan piece of art? It wasn't like she was going to act on it.
"Uh, no. I'm not. I'm looking for my brother-in-law. The woman at the front desk gave me his office number and directions, but I think I got turned around."
"Well, what office are you looking for?"
"Uh," James looked back down at the slip of paper. "Two eighteen."
"Ha! I'm sorry, she must have given you the wrong office number. Two eighteen can't be who you're looking for," Prentiss laughed a little.
"You sure? Oh. Okay. Well, maybe you can tell me where Derek Morgan's office is than."
"Morgan?" Reid nearly dropped his blue mug and stared blatantly, completely stunned. "Derek Morgan?"
"Morgan… Morgan's not married," Prentiss shook her head in confusion, unable to come up with anything else to say.
"James!" Morgan was walking out of Hotch's office and looked startled to see the young man standing there. A huge smile spread across his face and he snapped the file in his hand shut, hurrying down the steps into the bullpen. "C'mere, kid."
James grinned and the two men embraced, clapping each other on the back and exchanging greetings. Morgan led the man out of the bullpen towards his office and left Reid and Prentiss staring after them in sheer and utter confusion.
"Wh… when – when did Morgan get… married?" Prentiss turned to Reid who gave an expression that told her he had as little of a clue as she did. "Jeeze. Why do I have to be attracted to my friend's relatives? Seriously? Two in a row? Man."
"Literally. And if Calliope finds out, you are in so much trouble."
"Shut up, Reid. I'd never cheat on Eli. A girl needs to flirt sometimes, though. God. I can't believe I didn't know Morgan was married. How did none of us know? I have to call García. She can find the dirt."
"The dirt on what?" Ashley Seaver asked absently as she came in looking at the newspaper she held.
"Morgan's married," Reid told her.
"What?" Seaver nearly dropped the newspaper she had in her hands.
"Hey, P.G. Can you look up a man named James Murdoch for me?" Prentiss asked into her cell phone. "What? No. He's not part of a case. I'm just curious. Oh, come on. When did rules ever stop you? You tried to get Prince Williams' number from the CIA computer. Rules didn't stop you from looking Callie up when – That's not fair! Why is that 'different'? Why does Reid get special treatment?"
"I didn't ask her to look Calliope or the Sellers up," Reid reminded her. "If fact, I told her not to. That was all García."
"That was to protect a family member?" Prentiss repeated García's defensive reasoning. "Well this guy just walked in saying he's Morgan's brother-in-law. Doesn't that constitute 'protec…' Wait a second… You knew! Oh my god! You knew, didn't you?"
ooo ooo ooo ooo
"What are you doing here, James?" Derek couldn't stop smiling as he closed the door of his office behind them.
"None of them know about Sam," the younger man was looking at him with a confused and hurt expression on his face. "Are… are you ashamed or something? I mean, I never thought you were. I thought you were happy."
"I'm not ashamed, James."
"Coulda fooled me," James shrugged and leaned against Derek's desk, studying him with his arms crossed over his chest.
"James, it's not like that. It's just… Sam's private. A private, special part of my life that I don't want to share. If they knew there'd be questions and curious looks and I don't want that. Not here. I love Sammie, don't worry about that. This has absolutely nothing to do with that."
"Sam deserves recognition, Derek. My sister doesn't deserve to be shoved in a closet and have you pretend she doesn't exist."
"It's not like that."
"Really? None of your co-workers knew about her!" James voice was a bit louder than he had anticipated and he could feel himself getting upset. He'd looked up to this man, idolized him, since he was sixteen and this revelation sent his opinion of his brother-in-law reeling. "Are we not good enough for the important FBI people or something?"
"James, come on. You know that's not true." Walking past James, Derek opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled a framed picture out from under a few other files obscuring it from few. "She's always right here."
"Filed away," he scoffed, a disgusted expression on his face.
"I see your temper hasn't faded any with age," Derek sighed, looking down at the picture in his hands. He was a decade younger in the picture, despite his smile there were no crows' feet around his eyes, he'd been clean-shaven and had hair, he actually looked genuinely happy. And it had everything to do with the woman he was smiling at. Samantha looked up at him with a huge smile on her face, her blonde hair had snowflakes caught in it and blew in the wind slightly, a few strands obscuring her face, but her eyes sparkled happily. He remembered that day so clearly. They'd been with her family at a picnic on Lake Michigan. It'd been uncharacteristically cold that early October, so they were bundled in heavy coats and gloves. Her coat barely managed to stretch over her stomach and one of his hands rested there protectively, the other wrapped around the small of her back.
"I love you."
That's what he'd been saying when her then-eight-year-old cousin Gia snapped the picture of them.
"You're not even wearing you're ring. This is the first time I've seen you without your ring. Every time you come home you're wearing it. Why not now?" James' eyes narrowed, zeroing in on Derek's bare left hand.
"James, stop it."
"Right. Don't want to make a scene. I can't believe I ever wanted to be you. Whenever you come home, you talk about these people like they're your family. I know all about them. But they don't – your friends don't even know about Sam, much less Ellie or me or –"
"Stop it," Derek cut his brother off, his own temper rising. "She means everything to me. Ellie means everything. You mean everything. I do this job because of her, because of Ellie. No, I haven't shared them with my co-workers because they're special. Sammie and Ellie mean everything to me, my entire world, so don't come in here and act like you know what's going on."
"Well, who's fault is it that no one back home knows anything except what you deem tell us?" James shot back. "You just couldn't wait to pack up and get as far away from Chicago as possible."
"I was pushed out of Chicago. There was nothing left there. I couldn't stay."
"Nothing left? There was everything left! Your entire family was left. Our entire family was left! I was left! You walked out. You ran away to play soldier –"
"I did not run away from anything, James!"
"You ran as fast as you could. You ran and left me to pick up the pieces!"
"If we're going to do this, let's do it properly, kid. Not here in my office. Let's go down to the gym. Let's go see which one of us can beat the crap out of the other one first. Just like old times."
"Well, they know I'm your brother-in-law, so I kind of screwed you there," James said after a long period of silence. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I'm sorry."
"Eh, what are brother's for if not to fight with? I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I left you guys. You know I love you, right?" Derek put the picture down on the desk.
"You wouldn't have stuck with my ass so long if you didn't. Love you too, bro."
"So, what are you doing here? You've never been to Virginia, much less to my work. What's up?"
"I wanted to tell you in person," James was finally grinning again, a big, full-blown smile that took up most of his face and lit his eyes. The smile Derek knew by heart. "Juventus wants me. So do Milan, Barcelona and Man U. Liverpool and Everton called. And Real Madrid. A whole slew of others too. The Celtics, Roma, Chelsea."
"Ha! My man! I knew you'd get out of the U.S. and into the big leagues." Crossing to the other side of the desk, Derek hugged him again. "I knew as soon as I saw that save that you'd be getting the calls."
"Well, they've been interested for a while, but I think that friendly pushed it over. They're serious now."
"It's gonna be Juventus, right? Of course it's Juve. You have to play for Italy."
"I'm not sure," James admitted. "It's a lot to think about."
"What? What's to think about? Your room looked like a Juve store! How can it not be Juve? Ponsiglione's is practically closed on days when Juve plays. George would come back to smite you if you turned them down."
"I know. But Barcelona, Man U, Real Madrid… they're, like, top three in the world. And they want me. I mean, they aren't starting gigs like I have in Houston, but even benching it most of the season in one of the top three…"
"Of course they want you. You're a helluva keeper. And what the hell are you talking about, Juve is the best club in the world."
"Internazionale is the best club in the world. They just won the championship for the fifth year in a row," James argued.
"Who cares? Juventus is Juventus."
"I couldn't play for Juventus, Derek. No way," James shook his head. "When I met Gigi at the World Cup, I nearly shit my pants. I couldn't even talk. How am I supposed to play for Juve? I'd never stop a single shot."
"Naw, you'd calm down once you got into the game."
"So, you came all the way to Virginia to tell me this? I mean, not that I'm complaining, man!"
"Hah, you wish," James shoved his arm. "Naw, there's a People to People meeting in Washington that I have to be at. This year's tournament's in Italy and Germany, so I volunteered to be one of the conditioning coaches. The players who've coached before loved it."
"When those high schoolers meet you, they're gonna do exactly what you did when you met Gigi."
"They're playing in an international soccer tournament, I think they'll be on a high as it is. I don't even need to show up," James laughed and Derek just smiled happily.
"It's kind of early, but do you want to go grab some lunch? I haven't seen you since Thanksgiving."
"Won't they wonder?" James gestured in the direction of the bullpen.
"They're already wondering."
A/N:
I've had way too much Monster today. Except I haven't even finished the one I started. WHOOPS. I guess I should have another. And maybe some chocolate. And a PopTart. And maybe some Diet Dr. Pepper on top of that. It's draft day. I probably won't see much of it, 'cause I'm hanging with my Jermy before he goes back to school. Here's to hoping the Canucks get a great pick!
Okay, the people who are just picking this up and don't know me already are sitting there like, "Da fuq is wrong with this girl?" and the rest of you who've been with me through Cracked Concrete and Mystery Muse are like, "Welp, Thalia had too much Monster today, now didn't she? Someone should really take that away from her." Whichever one you are, I LOVE YOU.
OKAY. Neglected Hearts is the sequel to Cracked Concrete, which somehow became very well loved by people other than myself. Weird. You crazy people. Cracked Concrete is the parallel prequel to Mystery Muse, which has a bazillion one-shots that go along with that - I lovingly call them "deleted scenes," and it runs parallel to Mystery Muses' sequel Welcome to the Whirlwind Ugh, that's complicated.
Thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it and, please, tell me what you think - good or bad!
Love, Thalia