Clooney was more than Morgan bargained for. That was just a fact. Who else had a dog that constantly shed? That ran away every single time there was a thunderstorm and caused so many problems that the neighbors complained and now Morgan felt horrible every time the dog looked at him with huge brown eyes.
"It ain't my fault. If you would stop goin' through everybody else's yard, I wouldn't have to do this," Morgan explained, exasperated, as he tied the dog outside, with only enough slack to stay in his own yard.
He watched Clooney give the neighboring house a longing look as the car pulled in the driveway.
"Sorry. No treats. Not unless she comes to you," Morgan insisted. "No begging."
Just like that, Clooney's head hung lower. His tail stopped wagging in eager anticipation.
"Hey. This isn't my fault. It's just the way it's gotta be." Morgan said seriously, scratching behind the dog's ears.
Silence.
"Okay. I gotta go to work. Love you. Be good," Morgan said, and Clooney nuzzled his hand.
Morgan is on a roll.
Not many people know that Derek loves to shop, but it's a fact. It's not that he hides it, it's just that there's not too many dudes who think that shopping for a new suit is fun. But there are plenty of ladies who do.
Now, for example, he is strutting his stuff in front of a full-length mirror, in a new purple shirt, a tie and a gray suit jacket with matching slacks. He looks good. Or at least he thinks so until Garcia opens her mouth.
"Lose the suit jacket."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I can't see your arms in that thing."
So he shrugs out of it, and just for a good measure, rolls up his sleeves.
Garcia grins.
His job is done.
For Morgan, nothing was more satisfying than fixing things. When he thought back on all the significant moments in his life, Morgan was instantly aware that he was in his element when he was helping someone else. Sometimes, he took a minute, with no one else around, closed his eyes and remembered.
That time when Garcia's computers got all funky and they spent countless hours in her dungeon of an office figuring what the hell went where and taking tips from her on how to best secure a network from sneaky hackers like Miss Garcia herself.
When he tried to hang around after Garcia was shot by that bastard and she insisted that he go ahead. Nobody else knew that he made a pest of himself, checking in with her countless times that case, just to be sure she was okay.
Countless more instances made their way through Derek's mind. And he couldn't help smiling. For all the darkness he endured, sometimes, he just needed to remind himself of good things.
And Garcia was one of the best.
If there is one thing Derek loves it's getting under his teammates' skin a little. He'll go out of his way to antagonize Reid. Totally call Garcia out on some bogus cover she's got going for what's really going on.
But he's had to learn, too, then. If he's gonna dish it out, he's gotta take it.
So when Prentiss and Reid get their geek-factors going and get to talking about phobias. He shouldn't have been surprised when he mentioned hating rodents that he would find a real enough looking rat in his desk drawer to have him fumbling files, and making a totally uncool noise.
All part of the territory.
There are things Derek can't stand. One, of course, is a liar. This is ironic, because he is one. But he just can't handle it when relationships end up crappy because the woman isn't honest.
The other one? When the team calls him on his shit.
Morgan tries to tell himself it's fine. He can do this. But then Hotch comes in, and tells him that he has a record.
The anger comes quickly, to cover up the hurt. The pain. The awful truth lingering. Buried so deep that Derek hoped it might never be found.
But now they are closer.
Every time Hotch comes back, it's worse. It's bad enough that he's been arrested for murder, but now he has the team going through his life, and that scares the hell out of him.
When Hotch says that name, Derek can't help it, he explodes.
"Damn you, Hotch!"
He knocks boxes over. Does everything he can to convince his team that he is serious. He means this.
Later, when he's alone, he remembers the child he used to be. The one who sat still and let it happen.
He bows his head hoping they'll find out the truth...and hoping like hell that they don't.
When Derek remembers the cabin, he remembers being out-of-his-mind-drunk. He remembers feeling fuzzy and tipsy and like his mama will kill him if she ever finds out what he is really letting Carl do to him here.
He keeps quiet because Carl makes sure of it. He twists things around. Makes sure that Derek knows that he won't get anywhere in life without him.
As his hand slides up Derek's leg, and Derek pushes it off, Carl gets pissed.
"You wanna play games?" he hisses, his voice low and scary.
"No, sir," Derek answers, trying to stay aware of what the hell is going on. The "sir" is tacked on automatically, though he has no respect at all for this man.
"Where you gonna get in life if you keep pushing people away? If you keep making these silly accusations? I'm not doing anything anyone else who loves you wouldn't do..."
It's not true, Derek thinks, but he can't fight it.
Derek has always thought that there are things that separated him from the unsubs they dealt with every day. Then, he came face-to-face with Carl for the first time in years...and he understood how someone could find it in themselves to take a life.
He wouldn't, and he knew that. Still, it was closer than Derek wanted to be to the other side.
All he wanted was some peace.
All he got was a wound ripped open and a wild hope that maybe now other kids would be brave enough to come forward with the truth.
Morgan had been ready for this all day. He worked his way through the crowds of people dancing, getting his groove on and enjoying the feel of everyone's eyes on him.
He knew without looking that somewhere in the bar, Emily and Garcia are watching him. There come Hotch and Haley, showing everyone how it's done, or so they say. Reid is at a table doing round after round - not of shots - but Star Trek trivia.
There's a whole lot of beautiful women surrounding him, and yet at this moment, Derek can only think of one.
Where the hell was JJ?
"Oh!"
There. Of course. Playing darts with the men. Kicking their asses, too from the sounds of things.
And with that, Morgan let himself relax.
His team was here. He was here.
Everything was as it should have been.
Morgan knows that people whisper when they mean to be polite. Today, when he walks into a bar, in the middle of nowhere, with JJ, they don't even bother to whisper. The conversation stops dead.
These people hate him on sight. Because of his ties to the FBI. Because of his color. It's all the same. Hate is hate, Derek knows. He has experienced it often enough. That's both good and bad. It means he knows how to deal with it. And it means he knows that the pain of it never really fades.
JJ has his back, preferring to stand, not taking her eye from the door, just like Derek asked. While he is not confident in a whole hell of a lot, he is confident in his ability to do the job he came to do.
So, he steps up, and starts to speak.
The thing Derek likes most about Garcia is that she's unselfconscious. She isn't like so many women, concerned about what they look like, what they eat. Okay, so he is pretty sure she has insecurities, but so does everyone. The point is, he doesn't ever feel weird when they hang out with a huge bowl of popcorn on a movie night.
She doesn't insist on only eating salad, no dressing when they go out to eat. She has meat on her bones, and, if you ask Derek, that's damn sexy.
So is the way she wholeheartedly enjoys herself. They eat pizza, and she groans in pleasure. It always makes him laugh.
It always makes him take a big bite and enjoy it a little extra himself.
Derek's been a loser before. Reid doesn't believe it, that much is clear, but he remembers the time like it was yesterday. Being the tiny kid. The butt of all the jokes. He doesn't add that this was also the time that he was being used by that piece of shit, Carl.
He just looks Reid in the eye and says, "Yes, I know what it's like to identify with the bad guy."
Morgan knows he has no choice.
So he takes the ambulance. He gets Garcia on the phone. He makes her tell him a place where he can abandon this damn thing with its big-ass bomb, so that more people aren't hurt.
He can hear the stress in her voice, and he tells her that there is something he really wants her to know.
"Save it! Just get out!"
Three minutes.
That was all he had.
The explosion rocks his world.
He gets back on the phone, shaken to his core. That was too damn close.
"You know what you are to me? You're my God-given solace... No matter what happens... Don't you ever stop talking to me."
Morgan tries to listen to what he knows is true. But that's hard when he isn't sure what truth looks like. What it feels like. All he knows is that he can't shake the need he has of being the one in charge. Hotch calls him out on it, and that stops Derek in his tracks.
He thinks they are just talking about keys, but it seems that, even when he's injured, Hotch never stops doing his job. He calls Derek out for taking the ambulance, for being brave but also reckless and that those are actions of someone who still doesn't truly trust anyone. Hotch says he trusts Derek with his life and asks Derek if he can say the same.
"You still wanna drive?" Hotch asks, but Derek declines.
He'll do what he can to turn over a new leaf. Let someone else have control.
Even if it scares the shit out of him.
Soon, he will trust them. Soon, he will forgive. Soon, he will understand. Soon he will sleep through the night, without nightmares invading his subconscious. Soon, he will be sure that every decision he's made has been the right decision. Soon, he will stop doubting himself. Soon, he will look at people without judgment. Soon, he will see the good in the world instead of the evil lurking around each corner. Soon he will believe. Soon, he will remember the boy he used to be. Soon, he will know the man he is becoming. Soon, he will be true to himself. Soon, he will give of himself, not only to protect himself, but because he loves someone else more.
Soon, it will be too late.
So Derek starts now.
Morgan never saw it coming. Before he knew it everything was black. When he came to, all that registers is horrendous pain. Going backward through a window will do that to you, he supposed.
He sat, cringing, as glass was removed from his arm. To distract himself, Derek searched, to make sure everything was as it should have been.
But no. Of course it wasn't.
"He took my credentials."
"The important thing is, you're okay."
But Derek knew better.
The important thing was that now this son-of-a-bitch had a piece of him. In the back of his mind, he could still hear a voice that brought the hair up off his arms.
"Wake up, Derek. It's time to die."
But he had been too far away. Too mired in barely-conscious thought and blinding pain to move or even draw a breath.
That had saved his life.
Now, they'd all have to live with the wreckage The Reaper would leave behind.
Sometimes Morgan dreams that he walks into the BAU, and everything's fine and dandy. It's a typical day. Reid and Prentiss are down in the bullpen. Garcia is rushing around, but stops. Her mouth drops open.
"What?" Derek wants to know. "Do I have somethin' in my teeth?"
Garcia flushes. "No...I think...the problem would be...what you don't have, my love..."
That's when Derek looks down, and sees it. The truth. He came to work in his birthday suit. And while he's pretty damn proud of his body, it's crazy and mortifying and he always wakes up freaking out, sure that it really happened. He checks himself over and that's no good, 'cause he sleeps naked anyway.
And then, from the bed beside him, Clooney snores.
Just that sound is all it takes for Derek to chill out and for reality to set in.
He smiles to himself, and closes his eyes.
After all, there are worse dreams to have.
He ought to know.
Morgan hates it when Garcia cries. Especially when he does all he can to help a situation and it doesn't help at all. He hates it when she questions things, but he does his best to listen. To just be there. To offer support where he can.
It hurts him, to be honest. And he hopes she'll stop soon.
"I think I'm gonna stay on this job a little longer," he says, hoping to make her smile.
It works.
Thank God, it works.
Derek's honor is a slippery bastard. He has the best of intentions, always. But more often than not, he ends up leaving people hanging. He wants more than anything to be someone others can count on. Someone with integrity. But lately, the only people he isn't disappointing are related to him.
At work, it's stress 24-7. He is constantly stepping on toes. And when he is the one in the hot seat, it gets worse. When Ellie Spicer is taken, in front of his eyes, he swears to her father that he won't let anything happen.
Then? Well... Then, the worst happened. Her father had been shot right in front of all of them. Right in front of Ellie, just like Derek's father had been when he was a kid.
He is short. He has no patience. He snaps at Garcia even though he knows she's doing the best she can.
When Billy Flynn calls him, after he's let her go, Derek doesn't care if he sounds unprofessional.
"What?" he asks, irritated and showing it.
He goes in. They exchange words. Flynn raises his gun, and Derek doesn't flinch. He pulls the trigger not once, but repeatedly.
Outside, it is too bright. And strangely, it feels like there is no happy ending. And then, Ellie's in his arms, wrapped in a blanket.
She's hugging him. Holding on so tight. He holds on, too. He doesn't hear her cry, he feels it, subtle vibration from some deep place inside you when you've lost everything that matters.
And in this moment, Derek is aware that, though he has no children of his own, he is a father.
Morgan jerked away at the sight of Reid in a seriously disturbing Halloween mask. He never got the payoff of dressing up in some freaky costume just for a few Baby Ruths and an Almond Joy.
Growing up, Halloween was a time when his house perpetually smelled like autumn. It meant school was already in session. It meant his daddy would bring special jelly-filled voodoo doughnuts, even though Mama always objected. He might not have liked putting on a costume, but there was something so satisfyingly gross as a kid about eating something that oozed.
"Seriously, Reid. Knock it off."
"Hey," Emily said, snapping Morgan out of his memories. "Doughnuts in the break room. I call the chocolates!" Then she was up, quicker than Morgan had ever seen her move, racing down the hall.
Derek smiled. He thought of his father, and the weird thread of happenstance that connected his memories to present day.
He followed at a more leisurely pace, knowing Emily was already laying claim to both chocolate doughnuts in the box.
No one ate the jelly doughnuts but him.
Derek has a thing for hands.
He knows most guys are into certain other, more obvious parts of the female anatomy. But he can't get over how beautiful women's hands are. Garcia's hands are always busy. Always active. Her fingers fly over the keys. She adjusts her ring. She breaks a nail. He loves everything about her hands.
Emily's hands have always been a little mannish for Derek's taste, but he finds he's even gotten used to this. He admires the size and shape of Emily's hands. How steady they are. How they don't shake unless she's got a damn good reason for them to.
And JJ... He misses that woman sometimes. All right, more than sometimes. He misses the competent way she handled every single thing thrown at her. How her hands could be infinitely gentle or expertly tough depending on the circumstance - whether she was carrying a child or shooting a gun.
He loves his ladies. And my God, he loves their hands.
Morgan can't understand this.
Why the hell wouldn't Emily want them to know that their unsub was after her?
And now? Now she's just gone. Vanished into thin air. He just talked to her. Just told her that he'd be there for her. That she could trust him. And she had said she knew that.
If she knows then why the hell wouldn't she let go of her damn pride and let them help?
He blinks back angry tears and clutches the steering wheel. It's not his SUV, because his SUV got shot up full of damn bullet holes by the crazy motherfuckers that probably have Prentiss right this minute.
Morgan slows. Something caught his eye. He backs up and looks again.
There's Emily's car, parked conspicuously and not where it should be at all. With a hand on his gun, Derek gets closer. He looks in the window, and sees her phone on the seat.
He knows in that minute that Emily didn't get taken against her will. She's going to Doyle.
And she left this behind on purpose, for them to find.
