Title: During Times Of War
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Sarah Morgan, Jason Gideon (mentioned), Ocs, Reid/Morgan
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: T
Summary: Derek arrived at the work camp knowing it was probably going to be the place he died. He was happy he was still alive though and he was damned if he was giving up on the of returning to his mother and sisters at some point. And yes, the work camp turned out to be dreadful but everything has it's light moments, doesn't it?
Author's Note: October 27 was the anniversary for my grandmother's death. I was sick in the time up to and my computer stopped working on me so I decided to read one of the books I had gifted her for some Christmas and that I got when we split her belongings. This is what came from that.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Criminal Minds franchise, but I love it dearly. I even kind of dig the girlfriend-thing Reid's got going, although something is very fishy with her and I'm thinking paranoia, just saying. But I'm happy because I got me some crazy bromance (that we all know is actually romance)!

Special thanks to RayneMcKenna because (a) she's awesome and (b) without her the end would not be good enough! Rayne, you're Epic (capital E and everything!) and I love you. Thank you once again.

x

They arrived at the camp in the middle of the night, the bus' abrupt halt jolting Derek awake. The light in the bus switched on and a guard with a gun barked at them to exit he vehicle in an orderly fashion or else!

None of the prisoners made even the slightest fuss, they all knew what 'or else' implied.

This war has cost too many lives already, Derek thought and tried to remember his father, strong and invincible as he had been before he had being thrown into prison on suspicion of collaborating with the Resistance and put through days of torture before it killed him.

Derek had hated being the one to finally identify his body, but he would never had let his mother or sisters do the task instead.

The guards surrounded the group of sleepy prisoner, walking beside them when they entered the camp and then when they neared the barracks, they started sending one of two towards each low building. Derek was the only one to be harshly shoved towards the fourth one they passed. A grumpy guard unlocked the door for him, his armed colleague waving Derek inside with his gun before the door was closed behind him, the low click of the lock sounding like a death sentence to Derek's ears.

He had been held captive in several prisons and prison camps before this.

There were nowhere further to go from the work camps.

Nowhere alive.

Derek recognized the stench of charred meat tainting the air all too easily now.

The inside of the hangar was blacker than the night outside, tiny windows just below the roof was only letting in the faint shine from the stars and the thin sliver of moon and he could hardly see where the walls met the floor.

"Over here," a low voice called to Derek's left, snapping him from his thoughts and making his limps jerk stiffly into motion. When he got to the origin of the near-whisper he could only make out the white glint of teeth in a broad smile and the hollows of eyes in the man's face. "The bunk above me is vacant."

"Thank you," Derek whispered, easily pulling himself up onto the top bunk. He vaguely registered the low reply of, "You're welcome," before drifting back to the sweet oblivion of sleep.

He woke up – heart beating frantically from shock – what seemed to be only a moment later when a shrill bell rang, the sound bouncing off the hangar's naked walls and throwing it back, enhanced and deafening.

"You okay up there?" a soft voice asked and Derek shifted onto his side so he could look over the edge of his hard bed. He looked right into a pair of big brown eyes in a face so gaunt it looked too much like a skin-clad skull.

"I'm going to die here, aren't I?" Derek asked, the small sliver of hope that he would some day be reunited with his remaining family slipping between his fingers.

"Chance are we all will," the man said and smiled tiredly, his skin stretched taut over his high cheekbones.

Derek nodded and slid down from his bed.

"I'm Morgan," he introduced himself, keeping it simple and forcing a smile when he faced the man and held out his hand.

"They call me the Doctor," the man replied and took Derek's hand and shaking it with a grip firmer than Derek had anticipated from someone so starved.

He followed the Doctor when the doors were opened and the men in the hangar moved to form two lines between the rows of beds.

"You're lucky," Doctor said quietly when the guard counting them had passed the pair by on his way down the line.

"How so?" Derek asked, glancing at the man out of the corner of his eye.

"The kitchen is Hangar number One and they take the lower numbered barracks first. Us here in Four might not eat as well as Two or Three, but most don't last longer than a fortnight if they're placed in Seventeen or Eighteen." Derek turned his head to stare at the Doctor, horrified at his light tone.

"You don't make a convincing case for your argument," he said sharply and Doctor smiled bitterly.

"I've been here for seven months and my metabolism has always made me naturally thin before I arrived. The guards have started placing bets on the time of my passing."

Derek had to look away, the resigned disgust in the Doctor's eyes making shivers run down his back.

He felt disturbingly mortal.

x

Derek kept close to the Doc when they went to get their food. Then he followed him to the quarry and worked beside him the entire day for then to follow him to get his evening meal with him after and walking back to the hangar next to him too.

He did that the day after and the day after that and the day after that.

The day after that he asked Doc, "Do you mind me hanging around you all the time?" when they were eating their watery breakfast porridge.

"Not at all, I like you. And your impressive physique makes me feel safe," he replied with a smile that soothed Derek's nervousness. If had told him yes, he didn't know what he would have done.

It was easier to relax in Doc's company after that, and he realized that he had missed out on a lot of what was happening right beside him.

Doc was the most popular inmate of them all.

All through the day, other men would casually work their way next to him and past after exchanging a few words with him. After a week of watching Doc Derek was close to exploding from curiosity.

Then one day after watching Doc speak quietly with one man while his friend stood beside them holding his hammer loosely in his hands Doc turned to smile at Derek and beckoned him over.

"Can he help?" the man talked to Doc asked.

"I'm not strong enough to do it, Joshua," Doc said in a calm voice. "Morgan, you look like the type who knows about sports injuries."

"I busted my knee playing football in college," he said with a shrug.

"Dislocated shoulders?" Doc asked and tilted his head toward Joshua's friend. Derek nodded and stepped next to the man.

"Put down the hammer," he told him calmly and the man put it down. "Now, I want you to relax. It will hurt, but if it doesn't work you'll need surgery."

The man gritted his teeth for a moment before taking a deep breath, relaxation spreading in his torso with the exhale and Derek grabbed him and did the trick he had done on more occasions than he liked to think about and popped the shoulder into place.

The man let out a strangled yelp, his eyes wide with the pain never left Derek's face so he smiled at him.

"I want to tell you to keep it absolutely still if you want it to heal properly, but I know that wont be possible. So just keep it steady and do as little as possible."

"Thank you," he croaked before turning to Doc. "And thank you." He started walking back the way they came and Joshua followed him after repeating the words of gratitude.

Doc and Derek watched them walk for a while before a guard growled at them and they resumed working.

"So, have all the friendly meetings been medical consultations?" Derek asked. Doc smiled shyly in return and nodded. "Why don't they just go to the infirmary?"

"Only one in twenty-three returns from the infirmary."

"That's poor odds," Derek said quietly and worked for several silent minutes while he thought. "You're not a real doctor though, are you?"

"What makes you say that?" Doc asked, but his indulgent smile told Derek how right he was.

"You would be perfectly able to pop that shoulder into place," he said. "You're not that starved."

"Let's just say my medical knowledge is more theoretical then practical," Doc said and his smiled was infectious, Derek couldn't help but smile back.

"So you're not a real doctor," he concluded.

"Oh, I am a doctor, just not a medical one." Doc stood and stretched and Derek watched him closely. "I have doctorates in several subjects which makes me a doctor and I have read several medical texts which somehow gives me enough knowledge to help these people. But I'm best at diagnosing."

"I can help you," Derek offered without thinking. During the invasion he had helped Desiree patch up and help people several times when they came to her out of the hospital. She had deemed him better at gun wounds than her, mostly because the thought of someone being shot made her squeamish. "I know practical stuff but nothing theoretical. I could almost be an EMT."

"I'd like that very much," Doc said and smiled. "You'd be my nurse."

"I'm not your nurse," Derek said and snorted a short laugh.

"You'll be the Watson to my brilliant Holmes."

"I don't think so." But Derek grinned back; the look on Doc's face made him look almost too young to be in a camp of hard work and certain death.

He didn't belong there with men like Derek.

x

A bout of food poisoning killed more than third of the inhabitants in the work camp just when the trees on the other side of the fence started to turn green. The stench of burned meat was a constant, burning Derek's nostrils and fighting hard to make him lose his appetite.

He still ate his meals though – the food poisoning had made him lose weight as most of his fellow prisoners and he didn't want to risk losing any more.

But apparently the burning process was too slow, and the heap of bodies stocked in Eighteen started to rot, the sickly sweet smell almost succeeding where the stench of burned flesh had not.

One day the entire Fourth Hangar was lead outside the camp and close to the forest where shovels and rakes were handed out amongst them along with the order, "Dig until we say it's enough."

They dug.

Up until noon the guards were on high alert, eyes sharply fixed on anyone who as much as glanced at the forest and its distant promise of freedom. When the sun stood high on the sky and none of the prisoners had tried anything, the guards visibly relaxed though.

A low murmur of voices from further down the ditch told Derek that some of his braver fellow prisoners were talking silently amongst themselves and for several long minutes he expected the guards to take actions against the talkers.

Nothing happened.

"It's almost like vacation," Doc told Derek quietly beside him.

"How do you mean?"

"We're all out of the quarry, chatting easily among ourselves." Doc smiled. "If this had been sand I could easily convince myself I was building a sand castle and not digging a mass-grave. But alas." He waved at the ground, a cocky smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

"I suppose you're right," Derek said in reply and chuckled.

"But chatting is still an option and I don't believe you told me what you did to end up here with us hardened criminals?"

Derek rested a bit against his shovel watching the Doctor continue working. The sun made the thin layer of perspiration on his freshly shaven head shine, he didn't look like any hardened criminal Derek had ever met.

Derek resumed working when a guard shouted at him to stop lazing around.

"I beat an officer half to death," he admitted eyes meeting Doc's when he gaped at Derek.

"Why would you do that?" he asked incredulously.

"I was out for a walk with my cousin. The invasion had hit her hard so my sisters and I did all we could to help her. Suddenly, during this walk, my cousin went stock-still and I saw she had spotted a group of soldiers. I pulled her into a nearby alley and she admitted that one of the officers in the group had forced himself on her. I hugged her and told her to go back to my sisters and tell them not to worry too much for me." Derek shoved his shovel roughly into the ground and faked losing his balance to take a stumbling step closer to Doc. "Then I slipped her my cyanide ampul and went to beat the ever-living crap out of her rapist," he whispered and righted himself, stepping away from the Doctor.

"Your-?" Doc asked, eyes wide when Derek met the. "You were in the Resistance?" he hissed so quietly Derek almost couldn't hear.

"And pretty active locally. The Intelligence was on track of me though so I figured prison without the torture and probable death by beating was preferable."

"What did you do?" Doc asked curiously.

"I ended things that needed ending," Derek said casually and the impressed look on Doc's face showed his understanding.

"What did you do, Doc, to land yourself here – no wait, let me guess." Derek grinned when Doc met his gaze. The early spring sun reflected off his shaved head. "You're a doctor you say, so an academic. My guess would be that you were an active communist, too proud to hide when they raided the office you printed your little socialist pamphlets." He added a wink to let Doc know that it was meant good-naturedly and any potential worries were calmed when Doc chuckled.

"I actually was an active communist and proud of it," Doc agreed and smiled at Derek. "I wasn't too proud to hide it when needed though. Unfortunately some soldiers caught my lover and I holding hands."

Derek watched the Doc's smile melt away and felt his own do the same. He supposed he could see the fairness in imprisoning someone like himself who openly and actively fought the invasion but being punished for whom you loved never could be right in his mind.

"When was this?" Derek asked tentatively.

"About a year and a half ago," Doc replied no emotion in his voice revealing how he felt.

"Do you think he's still alive?" Derek asked.

"No," Doc denied with a ark chuckle. "Ethan was always too provocative for his own good. I doubt he survived more than a few months before some angered guard pulled the trigger on him."

"I'm sorry."

"It's the way he would have wanted to go – sticking it to the system he detested with his entire being."

"I'm sorry for you loss," Derek clarified.

"Yes. Thank you."

They worked in silence til the sun went down and they were taken back to the camp.

x

"Are you awake, Doc?" Derek asked the near-blackness when he heard the other man turn in his bed yet again.

"Yeah," came the low reply and Derek turned onto his side.

"What's keeping you awake?" he asked.

"Gideon died today."

"I know, I heard. I'm sorry. I know you to liked to talk about smart stuff," Derek said, feeling deeply sympathetic for his friend.

"I appreciate it, but," Doc said falling silent.

"Yeah?"

"It got me thinking. Gideon has been here for a month longer than you, but while you are still as strong as the conditions allow I watched Gideon slowly wither away, become weaker. It wasn't a surprise to me that he had died, I've watched it happen for months."

"Do you think he gave up?" Derek asked, his insides suddenly churning. It had occurred to him that Doc had lived longer in the camp than anybody else Derek had heard of. The guards' bet was a big part of his worries too, he feared the day one of them would take action to win it by killing doc. Derek didn't know what he would do if that happened.

"He once told me about his family. His divorce and his estranged son," Doc's voice said quietly and Derek shifted as close to the edge of his bunk as he cold without crossing it.

"You think he died because he didn't have anything to return to?"

"What do you have, Morgan?" was Doc's reply and his voice sounded so very thin frail almost.

Derek rolled onto his back, away from the edge. "My mother. Sarah and Desiree, my sisters. My cousin, I need to tell her it wasn't her fault and that she probably saved my life." He would have kept on working for the Resistance until they caught him.

Caught him or killed him.

Or both.

"What keeps you going, Doc? Ethan's memory?"

"No," was the short reply.

"Your parents?" Derek continued taken aback by Doc's strange tone of voice.

"My father and I don't see eye to eye and as long as they keep clear of the mentally ill my mother will be safe."

"What then?" Derek asked. "If you say stubbornness I'd be inclined to believe you."

"Do you believe in soul mates?" was Doc's cryptic reply.

"Do you?" Derek asked back.

"Yes." Derek heard Doc shift on the bunk. "I came in here without having met mine but I refuse to die before sharing a long loving life with him."

Derek felt an odd pang in his chest at the thought of the handsome, intelligent man waiting to sweep Doc off his feet.

"I'm sure he appreciates that."

"I'm glad you think so," Doc said and Derek thought he cold hear a smile in his face. A faint buzzing sound suddenly caught his attention and any thought to answer Doc disappeared when he listened intently.

"You hear that?" he asked Doc quietly.

"I, yes. I do," Doc replied breathlessly. "A plane?"

"I think there's several actually," Derek said. He gripped his blanket tightly in his hand, feeling his heart beat speed up as the sound grew louder.

"Do you think they're going to-? Do you think-?" Doc asked, apparently unable to ask the questions Derek could hear with his heart.

Do you think they're going to bomb us?

Do you think this will be the end?

"I don't know," he answered thickly. The sound grew stronger by the second and soon Derek heard the other men in the barrack wake up.

"I'm scared," Doc said and Derek felt him shift on the bunk below him. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge, dropping to the floor quickly. He could just make out Doc's face in the darkness, his eyes were huge and he looked sickly pale.

"Me too," he said and took Doc's hand when he reached for him,

The sound was deafening and he clutched Doc's hand in his as he heard plane after plane pass over their heads, sounding so close he almost ducked.

"Morgan," Doc whispered when the planes were too far away for them to be heard anymore.

"I don't know," Derek said. He sat on Doc's narrow bunk feeling too stressed to even consider letting go of his hand.

They stayed on the bunk for the rest of the night, listening closely and feeling scared that they might miss something if they talked. They weren't the only ones awake. The only sounds they caught for the rest of the night was the shifting on the bunks around them and the faint shouts of the guards outside.

When the light increased and the sky outside the windows turned greyish a new sound occurred. Doc who had started to nod off said up abruptly, obviously having noticed the faint rumbling sound too. His eyes found Derek's quickly, too wide and with a shimmer of hope that made Derek's insides tighten.

"You can't be sure," he told Doc.

"The planes could be reconnaissance, this could be help," he said quietly and breathlessly.

"You can't be sure," Derek insisted, trying to quell his hope. The defeat would be too great if it was reinforcement for the guards.

"You can't be sure I'm wrong," Doc snapped back, but he kept holding Derek's hand so he probably wasn't as angry as he sounded.

Every man in the hangar was silent. Derek could only hear his heart beating and the faint rumble from afar.

"I can't hear anybody outside," he suddenly realized the words spilling from his lip without thought.

Doc's eyes widened impossible more and Derek knew it was too late to kill the hope in him.

They sat facing each other on the bunk, staring into the others eyes as they listened with every atom of their beings.

Let it be over, please let this be it, Derek chanted in his head over and over. He didn't know how it would affect Doc if it was wrong but the hit would be hard and Derek couldn't afford to lose him, he was such a big part of why he was still fighting to keep alive.

The faint rumbling slowly turned less faint then close then very close. Doc's palm was damp in Derek's hold but they never eased the tight grip. They clearly heard the motors when the light started shining in through the windows and it was way past the time where they usually were woken by the bell and it made Derek light-headed with the possibility that it might be true.

The sound of the heavy, well-greased gates being opened was almost impossible to hear and Derek could just see motion indicating that some were trying to glance out of the small windows by standing on the top bunks, but he didn't turn to inspect their tries closer; he couldn't look away from Doc.

The sounds moved into the camp, it was easy to hear, and then all the noise ceded and voices started calling loudly across the open space circled by the hangars. Doc's fingers tightened around Derek's hand.

The door to Four slammed open loudly and men and women with guns poured into the room, looking around at the gaunt-faced men staring back. Derek's face whipped to look at them at the sound of the door hitting the wall and he watched them with his breath caught in his throat.

A man in the front lit up in a smile.

"War's over guys," he said and lowered his gun, the men at his side doing the same.

Derek looked at Doc who let out a shuddering breath.

And started to laugh.

x

Derek stood next to Doc as they silently watched their fellow freed prisoners enter the bright yellow buses.

"You're going to the coast?" Doc asked, eyes on a young man helping a weeping older man onto one of the buses heading south.

"Yes. Mom and Sarah and Desiree will be there of come back there if they had to flee." OR if they were caught went unsaid. "Where will you go?"

"The desert. My mother is resting at a sanitarium there. She'll want to see me."

"You're a good son," Derek said and smiled.

"My bus is about to leave," Doc said and looked at Derek who looked back at him a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth. He felt so light and relieved their captivity had ended.

"I'm glad I had you as a friend here," he told Doc earnestly. "It made surviving these past four months easier." He smiled in gratitude.

Doc gazed back at him, face a grimace of seriousness while his eyes roamed Derek's expression. Then he leaned forward and brushed their lips together.

"I loved for you the past four months," he whispered into Derek's mouth, lips parted in surprise.

Derek stared at Doc as he quickly walked to one of the buses, entering without even a single single look back.

His eyes searched frantically for Doc's face in the windows of the bus when it passed him by, but he couldn't find him among the gaunt, relieved faces staring and smiling back.

When he sat in his own bus and watched the trees flash past him, he realized he couldn't share the exhilarated feeling of Freedom Finally that the other passengers around him expressed.

Because somewhere during what should have been the four darkest months of his life, Derek had fallen in love with a man who had refused to tell him his real name.

All Derek was left to feel was suddenly hopeless.

"You didn't have to call me, I know what you want me to-" Derek was saying until a stressed sounding Sarah interrupted him from the other end of the phone line.

"Last time you brought the wrong brand, so now I repeat my orders so you don't buy some crappy copy! They're in a light blue pack and they should be just below your eye level, they're – hold on, there's someone at the door."

Derek sighed. When he heard his sister put the phone down he picked up a blue pack of cookies and tried to decide if they looked familiar.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder when someone walked by him with a full cart. He still hadn't gotten used to being back in modern society with it's multitude of food and laughter and hundreds of cookie brands.

"Derek, you still there?" Sarah suddenly asked in his ear and Derek startled in surprise then frowned at the now odd tone of voice.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" he asked, putting the cookies back on the shelf. He was down to the end of the aisle before he was done uttering the sentence.

"You need to get back here now."

Derek hung up and ran the two blocks to his sister's apartment taking the stairs three steps at the time to get to her floor. After a brief pause to slow his breathing and calm his frantically beating heart he unlocked the door with the key Sarah had gifted him with upon his arrival back from the camp and slid inside the flat through the slightly opened door as quietly as he could.

"Sarah, are you okay?" he asked his sister in a whisper when he spotted her exiting the kitchen holding two steaming coffee mugs in her hands.

She jumped in surprise, eyes finding his face immediately and her entire stance switched from fear to irritation in a heartbeat.

"Jesus Christ, Derek" You scared the crap out of me! What if I had spilled coffee on me?" she admonished and Derek almost rolled his eyes at her except,

"What's going on? Who was it at the door?"

Sarah collected herself visibly and gave him a quick look of this-is-not-finished-yet,but-at-this-moment-it-can-wait.

"Some man, Spencer Reid. He said he knows you? He's in the main room waiting for his coffee," she said and lifted the two mugs to show what she was talking about.

"I don't know anybody called Spencer Reid," Derek said with a frown and pushed the door to the main room open after sharing a nervous look with his big sister.

There was a man on the couch, his back turned towards the door, but he rose when he heard it open and his hair was longer and he wasn't as sickly thin anymore but Derek still recognized the man.

"Doc."

"Morgan," Doc replied and his name must be Spencer. His face lit up in a smile. "I... I can't believe I found you, this is the twenty-third Sarah Morgan I've visited and I wasn't sure I was even going about this the right way, after all you didn't tell me whether Morgan was your last or first name, but I felt that I should take a chance."

"You went door-knocking looking for me?" Derek asked, feeling weirdly light-headed. Smiling.

"'Miss Morgan? Do you have a brother of mixed race, probably Caucasian and African American? I'm looking for a man I met in a work camp in February.'"

"That's incredibly sweet in a slightly creepy way," Sarah commented from behind Derek.

"Don't mind her," Derek said and smiled when he heard her snort.

"Screw you, Der," she said and put the cups down on the coffee table. "Get acquainted with your friend, I have cookies to buy." She smiled apologetically to Spencer. "Apparently Derek doesn't know how to shop anymore."

"It was nice meeting you," Spencer said and Sarah waved her hand dismissively over her shoulder and left the room.

Derek looked at the man he hadn't seen for so long. "It's nice finally meeting you," he said with a smile and Spencer huffed a breathy laugh.

"Finally meeting?" he asked good-naturedly. "So the months we spent together in the camp doesn't count?"

Derek shrugged. "I never knew your name, I just knew you weren't a real doctor, you just read a lot of heavy books. But now you're here maybe you could help me with something. It's just your type of medical thing too, diagnostic stuff, you know."

"What is it?" Spencer asked tentatively. His smile decreased in width and Derek immediately missed it. He just couldn't believe this was real.

Doc was here.

"Yeah, I've had it since leaving the camp actually, and I think you're just the right person to help me." He took a step towards him. "You see, I've been experiencing this intense, sort of hollowing ache like nothing I've ever experienced before." He took Spencer's hand and pressed it against his chest, over his heart. "Right here."

Spencer looked between Derek's face and the hand against his chest for a moment, brow furrowed in confusion and Derek tried to convey with his eyes and his smile all the things going on inside his head.

"Oh," Spencer said, his face lighting up in understanding. "Well, Morgan – Derek, I think I might have an idea of what your problem is," he said his eyes meeting Derek's, suddenly dark and glinting with good humor.

"That's such a relief," Derek said with exaggerated relief, his gaze intense and unwavering as it held Spencer's. "And what does the good doctor prescribe then?"

Spencer took a small step, easily erasing the gap between the two of them leaning in until his lips were a hairs' breath away from Derek's. He looked searchingly into Derek's eyes, as if expecting him to pull away. When he didn't Spencer leaned in and pressed their lips together softly.

Derek felt dizzy from relief and happiness and returned the kiss enthusiastically.

He pulled in a deep breath when they finally parted again, his light-headedness unaffected by the intake of oxygen.

"Did it help?" Spencer asked shyly, a few mere inches away from Derek's mouth, the words rushing against his tingling lips.

Derek reached up and caressed Spencer's jawline with his finger tips. "It's a miracle," he said quietly, smiling softly. The corners of Spencer's eyes crinkled when he returned the smile.

"Congratulations, Derek," he said and part of Derek wanted to pull back so he could take in the entirety of Spencer's face, memorize the way the sharp features had softened and turned less unnaturally gaunt. "I predict you will live a long and happy life."

"I'm not so sure about that," Derek said, leaning in so their lips brushed every time they moved. "It pretty much depends on what you're planning on doing for the rest of yours."