Disclaimer: Not mine. And if I were making money off this, I wouldn't be working a nearly minimum wage job.

Momma

Pregnancy Counter: 19 Weeks

Derek nervously tossed his phone from hand to hand.

"If you break that, the department isn't going to replace it."

He looked up at Hotch.

Hotch nodded at the phone. "What has the phone done to you?"

"Nothing." His gaze dropped back down. "Have to call my momma."

"Why?"

"About Joy."

"She's going to be a grandma, won't she be thrilled?"

Derek shrugged. "And there's the, 'Aren't you going to marry her?' and all the baggage from that."

"That's something you and her have to work out."

Hotch continued to his office.

Derek rested his elbows on his desk and sighed. Hotch understood, a bit, with Jack and Haley. And JJ got it, with Henry and Will. But this…

"Big boy pants, Derek." He speed-dialed his mother's number and held the phone up to his ear, mentally chanting 'Don't hang up, don't hang up.'

"Fran Morgan."

"Hey, Momma."

"Derek, baby! What's going on? I haven't seen you in a while."

"I… have something to tell you."

"What is it? Are you moving back home?"

Now or never. "How do you feel about being a grandma?"

"Derek?"

"Remember the cop I was telling you about? Joy Marriott? I was helping her with a personal case a few months ago."

"And it got a little more personal?"

"Momma…"

"Doesn't she already have a little boy?"

"Tyler."

"What about him?"

"What about him, Momma?"

"Does he know you're the father?"

"He's five, Momma."

"So? Are you going to look after them? Marry her?"

He smiled tightly. This conversation was going exactly where he thought it was.

"I want to meet her. How far along is she?"

"Umm… about four months… doctors said nineteen weeks, which doesn't make sense since she would have um… conceived in early February."

"Doctors count the weeks before conception, baby."

"Next week she- we find out if it's a boy or girl. I'm driving up."

"Good. Is she doing all right?"

"I talk to her everyday. She's eating well, exercising. Her mother keeps threatening to move in with her and her father keeps threatening to come visit me." He still kept an eye out for Thomas Marriott.

"Someone needs to put the fear of God in you."

"You did, Momma."

"What are you doing?"

"I sent her a gift certificate for a massage. And I tell her she looks good."

Joy did. Seeing her standing, she just had the bump. Garcia said she might hate Joy.

"I have the ultrasound image. She sent it."

"What are you going to do, Derek?"

"I don't know, Momma. I don't want to drag her away from her job but I don't want to leave the BAU either."

"You have to talk to her."

"Not over the phone."

"What do you want?"

"Momma…"

"Derek Morgan."

He winced. "I think I love her."

"Was that so hard?"

Yes.

His phone beeped. He pulled it away from his ear and checked the call waiting. Not a familiar number, but he knew the Wilmington area code.

"Momma, this might be her. I gotta go."

"Derek-"

He switched calls. "Derek Morgan."

"This is Jason Michaels. I'm Joy's partner on the force."

"Really?"

"I was on vacation when you were here. Joy said to call you."

"What happened?" He was half-out of his chair, reaching for his jacket.

"She was shot at."

"Shot!"

"Shot at. And she went down."

"How is she? How's the baby?"

"They're both fine."

"Can I talk to her?" He made his way to Hotch's office and knocked.

"Come in."

"Joy was shot at and fell."

"You have almost no vacation time left."

"Dammit!"

"Derek?"

"Joy? Are you all right?"

"Fine. We're both fine."

He leaned against the doorway, one hand against his pounding heart. "How are you?"

"Scared." He could hear the tremble in her voice. "Usually things are pretty calm here. But somehow this guy got an officer's gun before they entered the station. One in a million chance. I was outside when he shot at me and rammed into me. My shoulder hurts. Jay took him out pretty fast after that."

He raised his face, pulling the phone away from his mouth. "Thank you, God." He turned back to the phone. "Don't suppose you would consider moving down here where I could keep an eye on you?"

"Look, when you come up next week, we'll talk."

"All right."

"Bye."

"Bye, Joy."

He hung up.

"Everything all right?"

Derek nodded slowly. "She's all right. They're all right."

"What else?"

"Nothing. We have to talk."

"Morgan, don't do anything stupid that you can't take back."

"I'll try not to."

"Try harder than usual."

He trudged away from Hotch's office to talk to Garcia.