So sorry its taken so long to update this fic. Here is the next chapter (after this it should start getting juicy :)).
Previously…
Morgan's smile spread, "Did you see who it was delivered to?"
"No?"
"Think blond, LA and a pool."
Prentiss spoke up, handing him the file, "Her name is Lila Archer. She's starring as Bella Swan in the Twilight movie."
Reid swallowed and looked at the Twilight poster. Lila was wearing a yellow summer dress….
Limerence
Chapter Three
.Trouble.
"Lila?" Reid whispered more to himself than to Prentiss and Morgan.
He could feel his partners looking at him, yet wasn't able to move his eyes away from the picture of her in the Twilight poster.
"Big fan of her?" Prentiss frowned, confused.
Reid finally looked up and turned his eyes from her to Morgan, who was still smiling, "That's one way of putting it. Reid actually-"
"We had a case a couple years back in LA…Lila had a stalker, it ended up being her assistant, Maggie Lowe. ," he interrupted Morgan.
Prentiss quickly sobered up, and frowned, "Do you think it's possible that this could be her again?"
Morgan shook his head, reading over some of the file notes, "Says here that Maggie was placed at the Camarillo State Mental hospital. She's been in solitary confinement for a couple months now."
"It isn't her MO anyway. Whoever we're dealing with is meticulous, Maggie wasn't," Reid whispered, still reeling over the information.
It was in the middle of his thought and the silence that fell on the diner table between the three agents that Hotch arrived at their table with a crease in-between his eyebrows, "I gather Prentiss has filled both of you in with the new information LAPD has sent us?"
Reid and Morgan both nodded, though Hotch's eyes lingered on Reid for a few moments.
"Yes," Morgan answered for the both of them when he didn't speak up.
"I'd like both of you to head down to LA with Rossi and coordinate with the LAPD. Prentiss, JJ and I will stay behind and work through the evidence we have here."
Reid swallowed and furrowed his eyebrows a little, "Wouldn't it be better if I stayed behind. I think I would be able to help more with the-"
"I don't think so. You have an established rapport with Ms Archer. She trusts you," Hotch insisted.
He paused for a moment to read him before adding, "The jet will be ready to leave within an hour. I expect both of you to be ready."
Without saying anything else, Hotch walked away and over to JJ's table, leaving them alone again.
When he was out of earshot, Prentiss broke out in a smile, "Rapport? Is that code for something else?"
"Yeah for-"
"Morgan", squeaked Reid, unable to hold in his annoyance.
He looked up realizing he'd garnered the attention from Hotch, Rossi and JJ, then cleared his throat, and looked back down at his pile of papers, "Please leave it alone."
"Who knew our boy was a regular casanova?" Prentiss elbowed Morgan.
He could feel his cheeks getting warm and placed a strand of hair behind his ear, gathering all the papers in his file and standing up, "I'm going to go get my stuff for LA. I'll see you guys later."
{:::::::::::::::::::::::::}
"Geez, what's up with him?" asked Prentiss sipping from her coffee mug, as they watched Reid walk away.
"Don't know. Kid's been weird all day," Morgan murmured with a frown.
in the almost four years that he'd worked with Reid, Morgan had seen an evolutionary change in him. He'd gone from an annoying know-it-all, who couldn't aim a gun if it depended on his life, to a lost kid, who's identity had been put into question by Tobias Hankel.
Everyone had been shocked when Reid had gone down the path Tobias had shown him. Yes, it hadn't lasted long at all, but it had lasted long enough to do its damage to him. Morgan had watched as it made him question just who he was, and why he was working at the BAU.
And though it had been a year, Reid was still recovering, his armor was still weakened. But maybe more than that, Morgan like everyone else who'd been blindsided by his drug stint, was attuned to every sign that could possibly take him back to that same dark place.
There was a sense of responsibility that he felt towards the kid.
"Earth to Morgan," sang Prentiss waving her hand in front of his face.
He looked up at her, snapping out of his thought, "Sorry. I was just thinking-"
"I know," she blinked, pursing her lips for a moment and looking down at her mug.
Though most of the time she brought a much needed lightness to the team, like him, Prentiss understood the severity of what had happened before, and she too felt like Reid's protector- they all did.
When a few moments had passed, she swallowed and carefully nodded her head, shifting closer to him, to whisper, "I remember too. Do you think one of us should talk to him?"
Morgan nodded as he stood up, "I will- during our flight."
{:::::::::::::::::::::::::}
JJ felt scattered, and it was something foreign to her. She prided herself with being composed, organized and ready for literally anything that could come her way. But there were two things that she hadn't been ready for- and those were falling for Will and sleeping with Reid.
Yes she'd wanted a boyfriend for a while, but when she thought about it, she imagined something casual, something along the lines of what Morgan had- flings- not someone who was so committed to her, that he'd fly halfway across the country to see her.
She inhaled deeply as she waited for the elevator to her hotel room, and checked her phone- still no message from Will. Not hearing from him made her shoulders tense with such an ache, that JJ closed her eyes, inhaled, and turned her head up and rubbed the back of her neck with her cold fingers.
In the middle of it, the elevator made a faint noise and a second later, the doors slid open, allowing her in, and as she went to press on the number 3 button, she heard the shuffling of shoes racing towards the elevator, and pressed the stop button.
"Wait, please!" called out Reid, and was able to squeeze in his thin frame through the door, with a triumphant smile.
He murmured a thank you through his heavy breathing, but when he looked up to see who'd held the door open for him, his smile faltered for a moment, before he looked away.
JJ gave him a small smile and placed her left hand on her right arm, attempting to act like there was no tension hovering over them. Like things were as they had always been between them, normal.
She swallowed and looked down at her black high heels for a moment, and then looked back up at him, "Hotch told me you and Morgan are headed out?"
Reid's eyes grew, as if he were startled that she was speaking.
He nodded and as he did, he violently sneezed, "Yeah-Excuse me."
JJ realized he was still wearing his wet clothes from the day before, "Are you getting sick?"
Reid sniffled and adjusted the strap on his shoulder, shaking his head, "No. Must be allergies. We're going to go question Lila."
She nodded, "Hotch told-"
"I know you lied to me," Reid interrupted her.
JJ frowned, and finally looked over at his blank face. He held no expression to give her clues. He was as quiet and calm as ever, and for once she found it annoying.
"What?" she asked after a minute, scoffing lightly.
The elevator stopped, after what felt like an eternity and Reid stepped back to let her walk out first, but as she did, he was right behind her. She looked at the keycard in her hand and searched for room 354.
She found the room right away and opened the door, "What are you talking about?"
Reid stopped in front her door and looked in, "Can I come in?"
For a second, JJ considered if it was a good idea or not, but ultimately nodded her head, moving aside to let him in.
He looked around for a moment to make sure no one would see and walked in, closing the door behind him.
"I remember last night…all of it," He said evenly, looking straight at her.
JJ laughed nervously and looked away, crossing her arms in front her chest, "Reid…nothing happened, we don't need to talk about this."
"Actually, something did happen. I didn't remember at first, but its all come back to me. And I realize you just want to pretend like it didn't happen, but we won't be able to put it behind us that way," He explained.
Of course, JJ thought to herself, even when it came to one night stands, Spencer Reid was a genius.
"We clearly both consumed an undefined amount of alcohol that resulted in a…freudian slip. I just want to talk about it."
She couldn't help it, JJ placed her face in the palms of her hands and laughed nervously, "I can't believe we're talking about this."
"I know it might be awkward-"
"-Spence. Can we just-"
"No," He interrupted her, with a hint of assertion in his tone.
He looked at her intently, then continued, "I thought about why you lied to me. And the only reason I could think of was that you thought that I might tell someone. But JJ, you're my friend and I'm surprised you think I would jeopardize our work or our friendship."
A sense of guilt filled her then, and she couldn't shake it. In a way, he was right, she had thought about how their one night stand would effect their work environment. But mostly, she'd wanted to pretend it didn't happen, not for her own selfish reasons, but because she didn't want to hurt Will.
JJ looked into his eyes, momentarily thinking about how different they'd been the night before. The ones in front of her looked sad, but the way he'd looked at her the night before, as his mouth had slightly parted and his lips had molded into hers, made her swallow.
She looked away from him and took a deep breath, feeling in sync with the heavy rain she could still hear hitting the ground outside. There were moments of thunder so loud, she wondered if it would penetrate the walls.
JJ opened her mouth to say something, but as she did, the lights went out completely.
{:::::::::::::::::::::::::}
"Again?" Whined Prentiss as she and Morgan climbed the last stairs to the floor of their rooms.
"What's with the electricity in this town?"
Saturdays were their cardio day and he'd gently reminded her that she'd flaked out twice. Taking the stairs had been her way of making amends for skipping out.
"All the buildings on the street must run on the same circuit," he muttered as he turned on the light on his phone.
He held it up and lit up the hallway just in time to see Reid and JJ walk out of a room.
"Do you guys know what happened?" Reid asked, with JJ trailing behind him.
Morgan shook his head, "No. We're guessing this building runs on the same circuit as the police station…You ready to go?"
The young doctor stalled for only a moment, "Yes. I just-yes I'm ready."
{:::::::::::::::::::::::::}
It was once they they were twenty minutes away from landing in LA, that Morgan looked over at Reid sniffling and looking over the pictures again, that he spoke up, "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Reid looked up at him and blinked as he frowned, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've been off since West Bune," he said turning over to look straight at him, "And that's not even covering the fact that you showed up wearing last nights clothes."
Reid looked back down at the file and didn't say anything.
Morgan clenched his jaw, "If you need help-"
"I haven't relapsed," he blurted out, annoyed.
Silence fell on them again, as they both collected their thoughts. In what had followed after what happened to Reid out in that cabin with Tobias, no one had ever said it out loud.
Morgan didn't take his eyes away from Reid though, and inhaled, "I want to believe it man."
Reid looked down at his papers and placed a fist under his chin to support it, "You aren't going to leave this alone, are you?"
"Nope. You know what happened last time I did."
He closed the file he'd been holding and chewed on the bottom of his lip for a moment, awkwardly- without looking up at him, "I had a one-night stand."
Morgan froze for a moment, then sat up straight and blinked, "What?"
"Last night- I…met someone at the bar when I thought you guys had left and well…one thing led to another."
Out of everything he could have said, Morgan had not been prepared for Reid to say that.
Then, in the middle of their conversation the captain announced their descent into LAX and both prepared to land.
{:::::::::::::::::::::::::}
Lila's Home
As Morgan rang the bell outside Lila's home, Reid sneezed violently.
"You ok kid?" He asked looking over at him.
Reid sniffled and took a tissue out of his pocket as he nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine-Hey, do you think you can do the talking with Lila? I could search her house while you interview her."
Morgan frowned, "What happened between the both of you anyway? You didn't seem to excited to see her when Hotch brought it up either."
"We sort of…left things off in an awkward place," he struggled, with a stuffy nose.
"Really? How so?" Morgan asked, increasingly curious.
However, as footsteps made their way closer to the door, Reid mumbled he'd tell him later, and they were both greeted by a nervous looking Lila. And when she spotted Reid, she crossed her arms, with a seething expression forming on her face.
"What are you doing here?"
