We're on the home stretch now people...
On the way to the BAU, they exchanged few words and Garcia had watched as his demeanour hardened, his emotions retreated from his eyes and his gestures became mechanical.
She had known that it was going to hurt him; betrayal would do that to people, and yet she hadn't expected this reaction. Anger she had expected from someone so passionate, so loyal and so protective. This complete shut off was the furthest thing from her mind.
But then she thought back to her findings on him, to his dad, to Carl Buford, to his time at high school and things fell into place. It made her heart ache more than it already was, only now it was not only aching for herself and the possible loss of a chance with this beautiful man, and for him for the shock of her true starting purpose, but also for the little boy who she had just crushed so completely by shattering his trust in her in one fell swoop.
---
The building even looked imposing as they left the car and wordlessly headed through the doors. He signed her in and took her elbow to lead her in the right direction, still remaining silent.
"Morgan, I know that saying sorry again isn't going to help but I-"
"You're right; it's not, so why bother?" He replied and although not unfriendly there was a distinct coldness to his voice, but she had expected that, deserved that.
"You're going to have to talk to me at some point, even if only in passing, especially if I'm helping with this case."
"Not my case." He said and he knew he sounded like he was a child about to have a tantrum but he really didn't care, right now he was too upset, too angry and too hurt to care about how he sounded.
She nodded sadly; he really wasn't going to say anything else to her now. But that was not going to stop her from trying. She knew what she did was unforgiveable but she just hoped that their 'relationship' or 'connection' or whatever label she wanted to put on it held some kind of stead in his heart and mind that could help her even begin to start the journey that she knew would be long and arduous to gain his trust back. But she was willing to try, willing to work for it. She knew that she had to work for it and so as he left her with the team of agents who were leading the case with barely a grunt of acknowledgement and not even a glance her way she reminded herself that if you didn't have to work for something in life then it was never that good to begin with.
---
Morgan sank down in his chair with a defeated sigh, his head resting in his hands as the words spoken by Penelope earlier reverberated in his head. She had lied to him, and not only that she was the hacker, the very one he had been getting her help to find, the very one who was putting his friends, no – his family, at risk, and he had fallen for her. He knew that much. He had fallen hook line and sinker for the most wonderful woman he had met and she turned out to have betrayed him, used him even. This was why he didn't get attached, this was why one night stands or his "three-date rule" was so much safer, so much less hassle. He had finally invested himself in something, in someone and had decided that he would see where it went, see how long it lasted, and hopefully it would last a long, long time, but she had destroyed it, crushed his heart and took with it the possibilities and the chances that he had thought of since meeting her.
He could not believe it, and yet he should have known. That's what was getting to him the most right now – the hurt and the anger at possible lost love and betrayal would come later but right now he was annoyed at himself: He was supposed to be a profiler, and a damn good one at that and yet he hadn't seen it, hadn't seen that she was hiding anything, nothing at all. The woman had been almost impossible to read, and yet he had thought he had figured her out. He could work out her emotions, her feelings, but what he had missed was one thing that must have been glaringly obvious: she was setting him up, and not only that but she was using him. No matter how many times she had tried to explain during her speech, or after he had announced they were going to the BAU, or even in the car, he couldn't believe that someone could say that they felt so strongly about another person and still betray them so completely as she had.
He was broken from his thoughts by Hocthner, his boss, calling a team conference and he sighed roughly, shaking his head as if to get his head back in the game; he needed to keep focused on work or he would mope for far too long. And really, he thought to himself, it's not worth moping over someone who can do such a thing to someone they claim to like.
---
"The woman is a genius, an utter genius with a computer! She does things ways I'd never have thought of, and ten times faster as well! She's a revelation! I cannot wait to learn from her." Alicia exclaimed to JJ and Emily as Morgan walked into the room. "You did good finding her Morgan, she's brilliant!"
He only nodded stiffly in reply.
"What's got your goat Mr Grumpy Pants?" She questioned with a laugh, Morgan's words from earlier completely skipping her mind, eclipsed instead by the thrill of new skills to be learned and just what she could do with that knowledge.
"Doesn't matter." He mumbled and was glad when Hotch came into the room with Rossi and Reid in tow, ready to start the meeting. However this thought turned to anguish at the first words Hotch spoke:
"We've been asked to help with the Davis case. " He felt as if he had been sucker punched, and not for the first time today he wanted to retreat into himself and get away from all those around him. "They want us in on it because they want it closed, and fast. They need to move quickly, what with all this new information, and in order to do that they need warm bodies. We've been volunteered unless any more pressing cases come to our attention. You report to Gino first thing after lunch to get your jobs. But until then, I want last cases' paperwork on my desk as soon as." He finished, effectively dismissing them.
---
When 1 o'clock came around Morgan knew he had to get his game face on, he could do this, and she was only a woman after all. He would go in there and work his butt off, show her that he could do his job, that no matter that he had misjudged her, he knew how to read people, and he was damn good at it too!
When he finally psyched himself up sufficiently, he walked into the offices upstairs with his usual swagger and although he could feel her eyes on him as she allowed her searches some time to accumulate data he refused to even acknowledge it. Someone who could do that to a person did not deserve it.
Privately he wondered if the rest of the BAU had found out about her recent areas of digging, but he suspected not because both Alicia and Emily were chatting away to her quite the thing and although he wanted nothing more than to tell them, he knew that it was not his place. It would become the job of IA. Unless Hotch found out before then, then well, then she might not be so lucky. The man had pull when he chose to use it. However, the more Morgan thought about it the more he knew that she was going to be here to stay, someone with such hacking and computing abilities would not be let go, no matter what they had or hadn't done. That was the way the Bureau worked, although he wondered just how fast they were going to have to work before the true CSA and Davis himself both found out that they no longer had one of their key players.
---
She had seen him come in and as she sat back to let the computers do their thing she watched him, his shoulders remained set and his eyes remained impassive, the man was giving nothing away. Although she knew he was hurting, that much was evident in his behaviour change. She kept repeating the words: "I'm so sorry Derek, let me explain..." in her head every time he walked by, so much so that she thought she had actually said it aloud one time when he stopped suddenly, turning on the spot. Her heart rate had accelerated; was he going to give her another chance? No. He leaned over the desk next to him to grab a new pen before heading back to where he had been before: the opposite end of the room.
She had spotted the other members of his team, the photo ID badges she had found during her searches allowing her to pick them out easily in the crowded room, and so when two women came towards her she knew exactly who they were: SSA Emily Prentiss and TA Alicia Baxter. She could rattle off a hundred different facts, both well known and secret about each of them, and yet when they began to speak to her all of that fell to the way side. It was not important, what was important was the two people standing in front of her who were doing their best to try and make her feel welcome, and although she realised that they must not know that she had been researching them and that was essentially how she had ended up in this very room she felt grateful for their friendliness. As she listened to their anecdotes and laughed at their jokes, batting back some comebacks herself she wished that she had hacked a different mainframe way back when she had been recruited by the CSA. Why, she wondered, did I not try Uncle Sam? I could have ended up here so much sooner.
She shook her head to dispel those thoughts as her computer buzzed, signalling that the search was well under way, and she reminded herself that in life, time should not be wasted on "what if"s or "could I have"s, but that it was to be savoured and cherished and that everything - no matter how small and seemingly insignificant or how big and seemingly catastrophic or euphoric – happened for a reason. That maybe this was a major roadblock that she had to get past with Morgan, maybe this did not have to be the end – and she fully intended to try to make sure it was not – but right now, this was what had to be done and in the end it would work out the way it was supposed to.
No matter how naive it made her she had, and would, always believe that, and so with a small smile tugging at her lips as her heart clutched on to that sliver of hope more tightly she turned back to the computer screens and got stuck in once again.
