Author's note: Thank you to tannerose5, Dextolan, Pembie, spxxxxx, Cherubim, and JessicaRae95 for all the support and encouragement. You have no idea how much your reviews means to me! The more feedback I get, the more incentive I have to write. Like a lot of writers on here, I feed off it, lol! So, please don't be shy! If you have any suggestions, feel free to shout them out. You'd be surprised how helpful they can be! Sometimes other people see things that I don't, and their fresh perspective can spark something that really helps to shape the story. In any case, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Not 100% happy about this chapter, but we'll see what you think...

"Morgan glanced up at the name on the whiteboard above the boy's head; 'John Doe'. He felt a wave of anger crash over him. This kid didn't deserve this! Any of this! He deserved a name above his head at the very least, and worried parents at his bedside, holding his hand and making sure he was going to be alright. He deserved someone to hold him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, and for someone to treat him with nothing but love and kindness for the rest of his life.

And, above all, he deserved justice for what was done to him!

"Hotch, man… we gotta find whoever did this!" he said, turning to look at his boss, "I'm not leaving till the son of a bitch is behind bars!"

Chapter 4

Morgan gave a little start, jerking his head up for what must have been the millionth time, when he felt himself nodding off. He'd been sitting here for hours now, long enough for the chair he was sitting on to give him a numb backside… and yet, the kid still hadn't woken up. The nurses had assured him that everything was fine, but he couldn't stop his mind from supplying him with all sorts of worst case scenarios. Like what if the boy had had an adverse reaction to the sedative?! That happened, right?! Sometimes people just didn't wake up?! The nurses had rolled their eyes at him and told him to stop torturing himself. Sedatives just took a little longer to wear off for some people. 'Everyone's different' they'd said, 'No big deal… He'll wake up when he's ready'. He just hoped they were right.

He straightened up, shaking himself a little, and glancing guiltily at the small body in the bed. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He'd argued with Hotch and insisted on staying by the bedside despite not having had any sleep for well over 48 hours. He was glad the man wasn't here now to tell him off or to make him leave when he didn't want to. He leaned forward and took hold of the child's small hand, giving it a little squeeze to assure himself that he hadn't missed anything. That the boy really was still asleep.

"Kid?" he said, gently stroking the child's newly cut hair behind his ear, "Come on, wake up… Don't leave me hanging here, man… You and me, we're gonna be best buds…"

The child's chest continued to rise and fall as slowly as ever before. He was clearly still out of it.

'Best Buds' he thought to himself with a wistful little smile. He wanted that. He knew in his heart that he'd never be able to just walk away and leave him. Not completely anyway… Maybe he'd check in with him from time to time and make sure he was doing okay in his new foster home? And maybe he'd be a sort of 'big brother' who stopped by every now and then, and took him out to do cool stuff? He could do that, couldn't he? No matter what Hotch said. That wouldn't be getting too attached. It would just be looking out for the kid. No harm in that. No harm in that at all…

"Okay…" he sighed, flopping back in the seat with an exasperated groan, "You take your time little man… I'll be here." He rubbed his face in both hands and then stuck his feet up on the side of the bed. "You're stuck with me now, kid... I'm not going anywhere."

Time seemed to tick past slowly and with the muggy heat of the hospital room he was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Just as he was beginning to drift off again, his phone began to ring making him jump a mile high. 'Oh right' he muttered, slipping his phone out of his pocket and climbing to his feet. He couldn't help smiling when he saw the name on the screen.

'Garcia'.

"Whatcha got for me, Baby Girl?" he answered with a soft chuckle as he moved towards the door. His smile grew when she retorted with one of her trademark quips, just dirty enough to get her fired had she said it to anyone other than him. "Down, girl" he teased, "Don't make me spank you when I get back… You know I will…" Her reply made him snort loudly and he glanced back in concern at the bed. He didn't want to startle the kid.

The boy hadn't moved a muscle.

"So, you get an ID on the body yet?" he asked, lowering his voice, "We got a cause of death?" He turned his back to the child and leaned against the doorframe. "Diana Reid?" he repeated, with a frown, "Schizophrenic? What happened? She go off her meds?"

Unseen to him was the fact that the child's chest was now rising and falling much faster. He was lying in exactly the same position but his hands were balled into fists and his little body was shaking.

"She the kid's mother?" he asked, with a regretful tone to his voice. "God, poor kid" he sighed, when she confirmed it, "How am I gonna tell him his mom's dead… on top of all of this?!"

He was silent for a long time as he listened to Garcia's animated and emotional voice on the other end. She was obviously upset by what she'd found out, and he couldn't blame her. He was becoming more and more angry with each passing second.

According to her, the house was registered to a 'William Reid', a third-rate lawyer who spent his time ambulance-chasing, and making shoddy TV commercials about workplace injuries and traffic collision claims. Handy with his fists, and exceptionally controlling, his wife had been a 'clumsy' woman who'd ended up in hospital on countless occasions with broken bones and other unexplained injuries. A fall down the stairs here, a knock with a cupboard door there, even an 'accidental' stab wound to the stomach! …But who was counting? And who was going to step in to help the woman with mental health problems anyway? Local police reports were full of victim-shaming language that might as well have said 'The woman's a nutjob! Someone needs to keep her in line!' Why didn't they just go the whole hog, and give the wife-beating bastard a pat on the back for a job well done?! Attitudes to mental health issues in the Las Vegas PD obviously left a lot to be desired!

Morgan fumed when he heard that she'd never pressed charges. Ever the victim, she'd allowed him to go on beating her, and corroborated his story at every turn. 'No, he had never hurt her', 'No, she was just clumsy', 'No, there was nothing to worry about'… Even if the police had wanted to help her, what could they really have done?!

The whole thing was so damn cliché that it might have been funny… if it weren't for the harsh reality of a beaten and vulnerable woman staring down the lense of a police camera. Sad and haunted eyes saying 'help me!' even if the woman herself couldn't. Garcia said the photos of her injuries were not for the faint of heart.

"Piece of shit!" hissed Morgan, glancing behind him and grimacing at the sight of the small boy in the bed, all covered in bruises. What he didn't see was the trembling. The utter terror overtaking the child's tiny body. All he saw was a victim.

He turned back to glare down the hospital corridor as he tried to picture the unknown man that he wanted to break into little pieces. "William Reid" he growled under his breath. 'That man is so dead!' he thought to himself, 'He just doesn't know it yet!' He was going to make it his mission in life to make the man pay

"Any records on the kid?" he asked, "We gotta name?"

That was where she'd turned up a blank. There were no records of the Reids ever having had a child. No birth cert. No record of Diana ever giving birth to a little boy. And no-one had ever taken him to the hospital for injuries, unexplained or otherwise. The child simply did not exist… at least as far as the system was concerned.

"But we know he's hers?" he asked, "I mean, we're sure he's this woman's child?"

The DNA matched apparently… Diana must have had him at home. In fact, Diana's trips to the Emergency Room had mysteriously ceased about 8 years ago too. Maybe around the time the boy had been born? Had the poor kid ever even been outside that hellhole of a house?! Had William been keeping them prisoner all this time?!

"We thinking he did this?" he growled down the phone, "He's the bastard that kept him down there? The one that gave him all those bruises? Did that to his eyes?!"

Garcia whined at the thought of anyone hurting a 'sweet little baby boy' like that and warned Morgan that she might just have to fly to Vegas to 'hug the crap' out of the kid the first chance she got. He wouldn't put it past her.

They'd put an APB out for William Reid to bring him in for questioning. No sign of him yet though.

"Do we have the coroner's report yet?" he asked, wondering what had finally tipped the man over the edge. When had the sadistic bastard escalated from keeping his family prisoner to actually killing his wife? Had Diana finally stood up to him? Had she refused to take it anymore?

"Did this fucker kill the kid's mom?!" he demanded, in a voice that was just that little bit too loud.

He was startled by a high-pitched yelp and a clatter of metal crashing across the floor. Spinning around, he gasped when he saw the boy dragging himself, flailing his hands frantically in front of him, and dragging an upended IV stand still attached by tubes to his arm.

"Shit! Gotta go!" exclaimed Morgan, cancelling the call and shoving the phone back in his pocket. He knew he was gonna catch hell from Garcia later. That woman did not take kindly to being hung up on but it couldn't be helped!

"Kid?" he called softly as he approached, "It's just me… Derek… Just you and me..."

All he got was a pained whimper in reply. He dropped to his knees and crawled to where the child was hiding. The poor little thing was huddled, pressed hard against the wall between the stand with the heart monitor on it and a bedside table unit. He had his hands over his face, his knees pulled up against his chest, and he was rocking back and forth.

"Hey" said Morgan, using as soft a tone as he could manage, "Hey…Kid…" He reached out and tentatively touched the child on the arm.

The boy yelped and pulled away, turning his face close to the wall to try to hide even more.

"Kid… it's really just me... You remember me, don't you?" he began to say, "I just want to…" He noticed the child turning his head, as though he was scanning the room for the sounds of other people. "I swear, kid..." said Morgan, "You're safe... It's just me..."

Out of nowhere came a small raspy voice. "Not true!" whined the child, shaking his head back and forth, "Not true! ...It's not true!"

Morgan was too shocked to speak for a moment. The boy could talk! He wasn't a mute after all!

"What's not true?" he asked.

He got no answer. The child was just shaking his head and breathing heavily.

"Come on, kid" he coaxed, "What d'ya mean? What's not true?"

When the child didn't answer, he began to wonder if he'd imagined it. Had the boy really spoken?

"Kid?" he tried again.

"She's not dead!" cried the child, shattering the silence, "You're lying! My mommy's not dead! She's not dead!" His whole body was shaking violently, his voice breaking with emotion.

"Oh God!" groaned Morgan, his stomach sinking. The poor kid had overheard him on the phone! How could he have been so stupid?! To break the news this way?! So callously?! To tell him his mother was dead, and that his father had murdered her?!

"I'm so sorry, kid" he said, reaching for him in a cautious way and trying to pull him into his arms, "You shouldn't have had to find out like that…"

"Nooooo!" screamed the child, frantically shaking his head and pushing at Morgan's chest with both hands, "Not true! You're lying! You're lying!" When Morgan tried to stop him pushing at his chest he began to lash out more violently. "Nooooo!" he screamed, smacking at Morgan's face, "Mommy?! ...Mommy?!"

"Shhhh, baby" soothed Morgan. He ignored the child's attempts to get away, pulling him into his lap, and enveloping him in his arms. "Shhh… shhhh… shhhh…" he continued to coo, fighting to hold his arms still as he began to rock him back and forth, "Shhh, kid… easy..." He just kept repeating it over and over, trying to soothe and calm him.

After a few moments, the child collapsed against him. Too tired to keep fighting, he started sobbing inconsolably. "Mo-hommy" he cried, one side of his face pressed hard against the man's muscular t-shirted chest. His little mouth was pulled into a pained grimace as he tried to talk through his tears. His voice sounded tight and strained from disuse. "W-where is she?!" he cried, "I want my mommy! …I want my m-mommy! You're lying… She's not dead!"

"I'm so sorry, kid" said Morgan, resting his chin on top of the child's head, "I'm so sorry…we couldn't save her... She was already gone when we got there."

The boy let out a wail and seemed to curl in on himself. How Morgan wished that he could take away his pain. The utter despair coursing through the little body in his arms was heart-wrenching. But he couldn't. He couldn't! The woman was dead. She'd been decaying on the floor of the house that they'd found him in and there was nothing that he could do to change that.

"You're gonna be okay" he whispered to him as he rocked him gently back and forth, "It's gonna be okay… It's gonna be okay… I got ya, baby boy… I got ya…"

Slowly, the boy began to calm, sobbing a little more quietly, or maybe just running out of energy… In any case, he eventually stopped crying and stuck his thumb in his mouth, simply allowing himself to be held.

"Hey buddy?" said Morgan, looking down at him and jostling him a little. He got no response. After another couple of attempts to get him to speak, he began to wonder if he'd become catatonic. Without being able to see his eyes, he had no way to know.

"Okay, buddy" he said, repositioning him to make him easier to lift, "Let's get you back to bed, huh?"

He climbed to his feet with a dramatic groan and picked the IV stand up to move towards the bed. He couldn't help grimacing at the bony feel of the kid's body and how little he weighed. How on earth was this a 6-year-old?! Where was the rest of him?! Hank weighed more than him and he was only 4 years old!

He set the boy down on the mattress and began to try to untangle him from his arms.

"No! D-don't l-leave me" whimpered a small voice, so choked and weak it wasn't much more than a whisper, "Please D-Derek?" He raised his face as though he was looking up at him. "I'm… I… I… I'm scared!" he admitted, "I don't want..."

"Oh baby, don't be scared!" cooed Morgan, sitting down on the mattress and holding the boy close to his chest, "I'm here now. I'm gonna make sure you're safe… No-one's gonna hurt you ever again. Not ever, you hear me?"

"B-but the doctors…" the boy stuttered out, "The… the doctors…"

"The doctors aren't going to hurt you" explained Morgan, "I won't let them do anything bad to you. I promise you…" He took the boy's small chin in his hand and tilted his face up towards him again. "You trust me?" he asked.

The child didn't answer immediately, furrowing his brow, as though in deep thought. He licked his lips before speaking again. "Y-yes" he said quietly.

"That's good" chuckled Morgan, "Because you and me… We're gonna be best buds, 'kay? And buddies look out for each other. They have each other's backs…" He took the boy's little hand and got him to make a fist so he could bump his own off it. The child just looked perplexed so he stroked the side of his face softly instead. "So… I'm gonna stay right here with you" he promised him, "…and I'm not gonna leave until I make sure you're okay… Okay?"

The child nodded, but something about his expression made him seem a little doubtful. Morgan couldn't help wondering if he'd ever been able to trust the people in his life not to hurt him? Had he ever had someone stand up for him and protect him? Obviously, his mother hadn't been able to, or he wouldn't be blind. Why should the boy trust a word that anyone said?! Why should he trust a man he'd only just met and whose face he'd never seen? Why him? Why now? Was it simply that he had nothing left to lose?

"You trust me enough to tell me your name?" he asked, cupping the side of the boy's face, "I mean, if we're gonna be buddies, then I think I should know what to call you… don't you?"

The boy licked his lips again. It was obviously something he did when he was nervous. "Sp… Spencer" he whispered quietly, "Spencer Reid."