Waking Theories

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds does not belong to me, only this storyline does

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please

- Mark Twain

Chapter 2

A week had passed since the morning call, and with each passing day had grown the number of odd occurrences between the two unknowing causes of the new relationship belief and the rest of the team.

The case had only kept the team for a handful of hours; their guy had turned out to be lacking even more brain cells than they originally thought as Garcia had found him withdrawing money from his old accountant only hours after the jet had landed. The man hadn't even finished placing the notes in his bag when the doors were kicked in and he was surrounded by a collection of guns.

Therefore they were all once again gathered in the Bullpen on the same day, a slight buzz of frustration in the room due to the clearly un-needed waking and flying; but with the arrival back home, also started one of the agent's slight sense of paranoia.

It took Morgan until an hour before he headed home to pick up on Emily's smirks and firmer than usual gazes; his lack of observation a fact he wouldn't admit.

In the early afternoon he was leaning on Reid's chair reading a file over the kid's shoulder when he glanced up to see her eyes burning into him, an un-nerving slither of a grin playing on her lips as her gaze occasionally cut down to his hands.

Later he had accidently bumped into the doctor causing him to fall to the floor and once he'd bent down to help his friend up and given him his half drunken coffee to replace the one he'd spilt; the agent had turned around to find her stare on him yet again and this time she'd thrown him a sly wink before exiting the room.

Then not long after, when he had released Reid from a headlock following a mini scuffle as the young agent had refused to help him complete his paperwork despite having promised to do so earlier; her gaze had been so he heated he'd actually gone and hidden in his office for the rest of the day.

The next morning he had hoped that his mind had been simply exaggerating the looks his friend had suddenly begun, but when she made a suggestive face at him as he entered the office ruffling Reid's hair on the way; he had quickly rushed to his desk and hastily began drawing up a list.

I need to find her a date fast – or she's going to push me up against the wall before I can even analyse what's happening!

On the same day Morgan started his mission to find a distraction for Emily and her new interest of vision; JJ had initiated a conversation that had left Reid vaguely surprised.

"Hey Spence," The blonde agent called, walking over and perching on the edge of the doctor's desk, "You got a minute?"

Reid glanced up from the algorithm he was doodling and offered her a warm smile, "Of course, I was just jotting a proof of this calculation an online mathematician posted; there are a few mistakes but his concept seems pretty sound."

JJ lightly chuckled at his nerdy quirk as she placed her hand over his and gave it a gentle squeeze, her eyes softening to a sincere tone; her voice lowering to a near whisper, "Fun – anyway, I wanted to come and - I just, I mean I don't want to seem intrusive but…" She sighed and rolled her tongue in her mouth, trying to sort out her words, "Basically, I wanted to let you know I'm happy for you."

Reid flicked to look at the hand clasping his own and he sent a few glances around the room before briefly looking up to catch her gaze; replying with a low mutter, "Um… yes, I – um, thank you?"

The answer seemed to bring some relief to the woman and her smile widened as she took her hand away, her voice retaining its normal volume, "I just don't see why you didn't tell me before."

"Well – I didn't think you'd be that interested," The doctor replied, running a quick hand through his hair.

"Of course I'd be interested!" She exclaimed, "This is a big change in your life and I want to be sure that you get the best you deserve."

"I'm not hopeless you know," He sighed with a raised eyebrow, "I am capable of doing things without other people's assistant."

"No – I know. I'm not saying you aren't, I – I just always thought you would come and talk to me before you jumped into it; I didn't even realise that you had that preference." JJ answered with a self-conscious shrug.

Reid rubbed a hand over his face and gestured it in front of his body, a thoughtful expression on his features, "Well, I've never really had a particular favourite, I'd just go with whatever caught my eye."

"Well the appreciation of the visual is defiantly something I could have given you advice on," She chuckled with a small wink.

Reid returned the smile, "I'm sorry – next time I'll be sure to talk to you first."

"Well hopefully there won't be a next time," She replied with a grin.

"Me too – it was a hassle enough the first time, especially when I first came home to –"

"Okay!" JJ interrupted, "I don't need the details! Just – know I think you made the right choice."

Reid looked briefly confused at her outburst but gave a slow nod, "Well there were very good reviews to help make the decision"

A musical laugh emitted from her mouth, "Trust you to turn it into homework!"

"Well it wasn't really different from what anyone else would do," He argued, "I needed to be sure I could fully trust the thing that will now be a part of my home for the foreseeable future."

"Oh," JJ gasped, her eye's subtly wetting at the innocence of the doctor's voice, "Of course – that's completely understandable; you need to feel comfortable with this."

"Yes – well… I'm glad you – get that," Reid mumbled, his eyebrows drawing into a slight frown.

Sensing he wanted to end the topic, JJ leant forward and gave him an impulsive peck on the cheek with a last whispered 'Congratulations' before quickly heading back to her office.

The young agent followed her retreating figure with his now deep set frown and lightly shook his head as her door closed, widening his eyes in a bewildered expression.

I didn't realise she held such a passion for hand-carved mahogany bookcases; maybe I should invite her around to come see it some time.

Then the following day had Morgan attending a spontaneous meeting.

The agent was pestering Reid by styling his hair with some gel, much to the kid's annoyance, since they didn't have a case and he was bored of paperwork when the voice of his boss sought him out, "Morgan – my office please."

Adding one last spike to the doctor's hair resulting in another agitated cry, he made his way to the overlooking room; closing the door as he entered.

"What's up Hotch?" He asked, his face diluting to a controlled expression on sensing the atmosphere of the conversation he was joining.

The elder agent was sat at his desk, his hands strumming on-top of a thick manuscript and after a couple of seconds he looked up to meet his friend's eyes, but dropped the gaze back to his hands as soon as he had lifted it.

"Do you remember the rules of conduct within the office you had to sit and listen to when you first started here?" Hotch began, his tone refusing to hint at any reason for the topic approach.

Morgan frowned, crossing his arms and moving further into the room, "Sure – it's all the general stuff. No slander, no discrimination, no harassment… it's not really anything complicated enough to need to sit down and revise."

"I know," He replied, pausing and letting out a highly uncharacteristic nervous cough before continuing, "Then – you remember the rules around fraternisation?"

The agent faltered at the unexpected question; is this what he'd been called in to discuss?

"Yeah… it's not forbidden but it is frowned against, though they do say that if two members are in a relationship then displays of affection should…. Oh – wait…"

The elder agent gave a brief nod, "It's not that I'm not happy – it's just that if Strauss found out about – "

Smirking, Morgan made a surrender sign with his hands, "I get it – it's not suitable to be done in the office."

Hotch's features seemed to relax slightly at not having to explain what he was trying to get across, "You do? Good – then you understand…"

He let out a hearty laugh and shook his head, "Yeah – don't worry, I can make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Thank you, it's just… the jet – "

Morgan's eyes widened, "Oh you're talking about the jet? I thought you meant what happened in the conference room."

His boss blanched at the reply and looked up with a fearful expression, his voice gaining an octave, "The conference room?"

"You didn't know about that?" The agent questioned.

When Hotch answered with a rather shaky movement of his head Morgan chuckled and gave him a wicked grin, "Then I don't think you want to know."

If possible the man managed to lose even more blood from his face and he froze staring at the opposite wall; slowly mouthing to himself 'the conference room?'

Morgan took this as he cue to leave and left his poor boss to try and overcome his mind's scarring, making a mental note to check on him in thirty minutes to ensure that he was still breathing.

But he had to admit, that face had been hilarious.

Better go let my Baby Girl know that her and Kevin's off-hour activities have finally been revealed; I knew she wouldn't be able to get away with it.

Two days later Reid won the non-existent challenge of making Rossi blush beet-root without even noticing.

"Rough night?" The agent laughed as he walked into the break room to find Reid practically lying on the counter top half-asleep. He'd finally managed to get his brain to adjust to the newly revealed relationship and he wasn't going to avoid the knowledge; plus he knew the innocence of the youngest member would mean he was safe from any unwanted information in conversation about the topic.

"Well it was blissful until the wailing started."

The coffee that had just entered Rossi's mouth splattered against the wall as the mumbled word's left the doctor's mouth; did he just say… he'd been trying to show his acceptance, not gather a detailed insight!

However the young agent didn't notice this as his face remained flat on the counter with his eyes closed in weariness.

"Yeah just came out of nowhere," He continued, "And it's only happened once before but when I tried to do something then it didn't work and I couldn't think of anything else."

Rossi now looked completely panic-struck as he tried to look around for someone to come and stop the kid from talking; he could already feel the heat around his collar.

"I mean at first I thought something was wrong – because it sounded so similar to a baby crying or maybe even a screaming woman, much worse than it sounded last time."

Now the agent could literally feel the blood rushing to his face, what happened to Reid being the shy, nerdy kid; that had been why he'd come to talk to the doctor and not Morgan in the first place!

Sliding to rest his head on his folded arms the doctor grumbled, "And then even though I was relieved because I realised there was nothing wrong – there was no shutting up!"

His mouth was now gaping open and he knew someone could probably start frying something on his face with the heat it was giving off; he desperately wanted to just leave the room, but he couldn't just leave the kid talking about… that, to an empty room – anyone could walk in.

"Now and then it would stop and I'd almost be able to sleep… and suddenly there we go again, I think it was just being done in spite for what I did the other night."

The heat had become so concentration in his face Rossi knew he needed to get out of there; he didn't care who walked in hearing the kid, he hadn't signed up for this when he'd started the conversation, "I – I need… paperwork… have – bye."

And the agent sprinted from the room as if it was a burning building, heading straight for the bathroom where he speedily filled one of the sinks and submerged his face in the freezing water; desperately trying to forget the last few minutes of his life.

Reid barely noticed the man's departure, letting out a mild groan in response as he burrowed his head further into his arms and began to fall asleep.

Throwing water over the blasted beast may not have worked yesterday, but if that cat doesn't stop wailing at 3am I am going to shove it in a bag and send it down the river!

It was Friday morning, five days since the minimal case which had sent them on an unnecessary flight; and Morgan and Reid were once again the last two to arrive at the office.

"If I'd known you'd had an ulterior motive for offering me a lift this morning, I would have refused." Morgan muttered as he slid from the car and made his way to the building entrance, purposely not waiting for the driver of the vehicle to follow.

Stumbling from the car as he quickly locked up so he could run to catch his disappearing friend, Reid failed to hear the complaint and continued with his already twenty-five minute long begging, "- and it has only happened once before! I saw the advertisement when I was twelve but I had no way of single-handily getting there; it's a one off event – they won't re-do it within my lifetime again, statistically the profit revenue of such a specifically target populated event will achieve a 5% increase per year they don't hold it to when it is finally brought back as the word-to-mouth anticipation will have-"

The young agent abruptly cut off his rambling in an automatic reflex to the look Morgan sent him, despite the fact they weren't currently in a situation where he was making a witness feel uneasy or grating on the nerves of a police officer, Reid's brain still reactively shut down his speech when the older agent threw him that warning look – it was an annoying fact.

"Kid – I already told you the first time you asked; I'm not going to a convention on Albert Einstein," He firmly stated, trying to emphasis the point that he wasn't going to change his mind.

Leaning past Morgan and swiping his security card since the elder man rarely remembered to bring his own, relying on calling the doctor to come down and let him in or flirting with one of the securities to gain access, Reid bestowed his best whine, "But why not?"

"I have a date," Morgan answered, dodging out of the path of a busy co-worker to avoid having a cup of coffee released on his shirt.

An immediate reply didn't follow the excuse and the agent sighed at the thought he knew had just popped into his colleague's head, "You're seriously going to ask me to cancel my date just so you can have company at your convention?"

"Well you have a different date every night," Reid pointed out, turning to face his friend so he was now walking down the corridor backwards, "And this convention is only on tomorrow – just reschedule."

Grabbing the doctor's elbow, Morgan dragged him out of the way of a woman tapping excessively on her phone, "Oh yeah – reschedule a date with an attractive, funny woman at my favourite restaurant to go to a convention with a load of geniuses discussing things that I will never understand and frankly will never care about – I'll get right on it."

Reid paused for a moment and watched as his friend stepped into the elevator, then a flush of understanding came over him and he shot forward again, "That was sarcasm."

"Well done – anyway, why don't you just ask one of the other guys to go with you?"

"Because they've been acting weird all week."

"True… but just pretend they haven't and ask one of them to go with you."

"I can't – they all have plans that can't be changed, you're the only one who is available to go."

"But I'm not available to go! I'm sure someone could change their plans"

"Jack has a football match that he's been excited about for weeks which Hotch is attending an-"

The doors to the elevator closed just as Morgan was contemplating making a run for it and taking the stairs, leaving him with twelve levels of explanations of the teams activities for the next day.

"- and its Garcia and Kevin's three month anniversary!" Reid finished, expectantly looking at his friend who was leant against the back wall with his eyes closed and hands covering his face.

The ding of the doors opening had Morgan sprinting off as if it was the start to a 100m race, leaving the doctor to sulkily make his way to his desk and collapse into the chair, wallowing in the self-pity of the knowledge he had failed in changing the agents mind.

Garcia entered the room to this sight of her little genius slouched down over his un-opened paperwork with a heart-breaking pitiful expression of rejection on his face and she quickly ran over to gush, "Oh sweetheart! What's the matter? You look like a puppy that's been kicked in the stomach and had his bone taken from him!"

Not bothering to comment on the strange imagery, Reid sighed and began to explain the mornings occurrence, "Morgan's got a date tomorrow night and-"

The reaction to that first line was not something the young agent had been expecting and he pushed himself away from the desk at the pure fire that had burst in the analyst's eyes; actually fearful for his life in that second.

"He what!" She screamed, her head snapping around to where Morgan could be seen in the conference room with the rest of the team and the blaze of her expression somehow managed to intensify.

"Derek Morgan you have got some explaining to do right now!"

Still frozen by the deadly screech of the woman's voice, Reid's mind took a second to re-boot before he quickly ran after his normally sunshine cheerful friend, silently hoping she had nothing that could be used as a weapon on her person.

The target of the sudden death warrant had been calmly sat at the roundtable listening to JJ tell them about how Henry had crawled into the flower bed yesterday, sighing a breath of relief at having escaped Reid's pestering when the furious cry had sounded and a hand had slammed down in front of him.

"How dare you do this to my Reid! I never knew you could be such a selfish, heartless jerk!"

The room fell into a shocked silence at Garcia calling her in office boyfriend such spiteful names and they all sent each other nervous glances, not noticing the named in the accusation collapsing into the room staring at the analyst with wide, fearful eyes.

Morgan was sat gaping up at Garcia, for one not believing she'd just shouted at him with such hate and secondly trying to understand why she was so angry at him for not going to a convention with Reid; it's not like she would have agreed if the kid had asked her.

Leaning to the side and catching Reid's gaze he raised an eyebrow and said, "You told Garcia?"

The doctor opened his mouth to reply but a resounding smack of flesh hitting flesh froze the movement.

"You organise a date with some woman and you dare try and blame Reid for it!"

The force of the smack across his cheek had actually sent him off his chair and he was left staring up at his baby girl with disbelief; waiting for one of his team members to stand to his defence and question her on this sudden anger and violence.

But when no defence came, Morgan looked around to find his colleagues glaring at him with the same level of anger; which made him feel increasingly uneasy seeing as those members all had guns on them.

What is going on!

Being the only person left who wasn't on the verge of murder, Reid quickly ran to his friend's side and helped him to his feet; subtly placing himself in front of the agent, a switch on which of them was normally the most vulnerable in an angered situation.

His tone fell into the calm reasoning that would emerge when talking down an unsub as the young agent addressed Garcia, who's eyes had narrowed even more at his actions.

"Look – it doesn't matter Garcia, it's really not important – I can't expect Morgan to change his plans for me."

Reid frowned as the team let out agitated sounds of disapproval at his attempt to calm the increasingly strange situation; they'd been acting slightly off all week but this was now ridiculous!

The doctor didn't know what to do, he was used to handling his friends and their mood-swings but not to this degree; he glanced back to Morgan with a questioning look but the man just shrugged in response, he was just as confused.

However, the next sentence that was emitted into the room finally sliced through the boundary of misconceptions that had been spread out through the week and allowed the opportunity for some actual reality based communication to occur.

"You're his boyfriend Spence; he shouldn't have plans with women to need to change for you."

A symmetrical comical expression of widened eyes, open mouths and raised eyebrows snapped onto the two friend's faces at these words and a torrent of silence fell over them.

Cautiously, keeping his eye-line on the team for the warnings of another sentence coming from them, Morgan lightly pulled a shell-shocked Reid backwards away from the people he now was quite sure were imposters.

"Reid."

"Yes."

"Did you ask me out?"

"No."

"Did I ask you out?"

"Definitely not."

"Is it possible for these to all be clones of our team?"

"In a movie – very; but within our reality, highly improbable."

"Are you still breathing?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

The whispered interaction between the men was watched with confusion and Emily took the initiative to try and work into the conversation. As she took a step forward, they both whipped around to face her, scrutinising her with wary gazes as if she was about to accuse them of being secretly married as well.

"Guys," She began, "We heard you on the phone the morning before we went on that case; you practically spelt out that you were dating."

Reid frowned at this, his brain flicking back to the phone call and trying to reassess what had apparently hinted at such a thing.

"You were talking about ruining Morgan's shirt," Rossi explained with a grimace, not desiring the memory of that morning.

"And how your bodies had been… working," Garcia added, her anger seemingly disappeared at the naivety of her target as to why she was annoyed.

"What? But we…" Morgan's voice dwindled off as understanding fell over him, and it seemed that Reid's brain had replayed the conversation and come to the same realisation as well; though their reactions came a lot differently.

The older agent burst into hysteria of laughter, doubling over on himself and leaning his hand on the doctor's shoulder for support as all the strange behaviour and conversations that had come from his team over the week suddenly made sense; if only they'd planned this as a practical joke! He would be taking glory for years!

On the other hand, Reid had frozen up with a look of horror on his features; he could feel the blood rushing to his face as he realised what his friends had thought he'd been talking about at points during the week – he didn't think he'd ever been this embarrassed in his life.

"We –" Morgan gasped, trying to control his laughter, "We were talking about a club!"

Garcia looked completely taken back by this, her eyes narrowing as if daring the agent to be telling the truth, "But it sounded like – "

The situation was becoming too distressing for Reid and he quickly jumped in before Garcia could tell them exactly what she thought it sounded like, "He dragged me out to a club! A woman threw up on his shirt, he didn't wash it so it was ruined, he was tired because he was dancing all night and he was at my house because he was intoxicated so I made him sleep on my couch!"

The poor doctor was panting as his rambling finished; his hands poised in front of him as he'd tried to emphasis the point that the team had all completely misunderstood what they had heard.

JJ frowned at her friend's explanation, "But I congratulated you – we talked about you being together."

"I thought you were excited about a new bookcase I'd brought!" Reid cried; his eyes in a wild flurry of panic.

Coughing, Hotch hesitantly spoke up, "So when I talked to you about – "

Still chuckling Morgan wiped the tears from his eyes, "I thought you knew about what Garcia had been doing with Kevin around the office."

A small squeak came from the analyst at this revelation, but it was squandered by Rossi grinning, now knowing his ears hadn't been slandered as he'd thought and enquiring, "And the wailing – "

"My neighbour's cat's been screaming outside my house." Reid mumbled into his hand's, mortified by how he must of sounded if the elder agent had been thinking in that mind frame.

"So," Garcia nervously asked, now feeling very guilty for slapping her man across the face, "Why was Reid upset about you going on a date?"

"He wanted me to go with him to a convention," Morgan replied with a smirk, "And I said I was busy. However maybe I will go now; wouldn't want my boyfriend feeling rejected."

The doctor literally jumped away from the hand Morgan placed on his shoulder as the joke was made and quickly sped from the room; mumbling equations under his breath as he tried to push down the redness in his face and attempted to ignore his friend's laughter and the sighs of Garcia saying how they'd made such a sweet couple.

I need to find a girl – and I need to find one fast.

Thank you so much for reading :) x