AN: Here's chapter 10. I had every intention of tying it into the 4th, but by the time I got around to finishing it and posting that wasn't the case. But the same still applies, have a happy and safe 4th.

And as always is the case, I don't own a thing.

"Grrrrr. The girls are doing alright. I mean, yeah there are some things that just could never be reconciled."

"Like what?"

"Ivory. She was kidnapped in broad daylight off of the streets of Tokyo while walking home from school with one of her friends. Her friend Kykio narrowly escaped the same fate. She was able to give a brief physical description to the cops. During Ivory's time as property of the traffickers, her mother died slowly over many months, some say from a broken heart. Her father worked himself into an early grave. He had his regular job, he worked about 80 hours a week, and then he came home and cared for his wife. His health didn't hold out. Her siblings all scattered to the four winds once they were old enough to move out on their own. She has since tracked them all down. But after all these years, it's been hard to build the closeness back up that they once shared. Cossette was kidnapped off the streets of Paris. Her family was homeless and transient, and it's made it nearly impossible to track them down. Although there was one time a few years ago she thought she may have caught sight of one of her brothers. She can't be sure though, because by the time she reached the point where he had been standing, he was gone. And she hasn't seen either of her parents, she doesn't know if they are alive or dead. Oona and Theo have both tracked their families down, and they have rebuilt some of the family ties that they once had, but they are still distant with their relations. Their families sold them to the traffickers, they feel betrayed. Now in all honesty, the parents thought they were giving the girls to people who were going to bring them to America and give them better lives. That's the story that they were given. And the girls know that, but they still have a hard time forgiving. You don't know what they lived through. Immogene and Zaheer have also found their families but are distant, only for slightly different reasons. They were kidnapped, like Ivory and Cossette. But they feel as though there was a point in time where their families gave up on them. They were often told that if the child wasn't found in a certain amount of time that they were likely dead that they should move on. Which they did. The police were supposed to still be working the case, but the investigation pretty much stalled. And the girls were forgotten, left to die. Lakshmi has more reason than most to hate her family, and she does. Her biological parents sent her to live with an uncle when she was a child. They were somewhat poor and they thought by sending her to live with him it would open her up to advantages they couldn't give her. At the age of 8 he sold her to a madam. She was kept in the madam's house to do odd jobs-cooking, cleaning, etc. by the age of 11 the madam had started using her as a prostitute. By age 13 or 14 the madam sold her to the traffickers; they paid the madam as much money as it would have taken Lakshmi four months to earn. So for most of her life, Lakshmi was someone's property. Other girls have similar stories. There are some girls that didn't make it. And there are some that should have died after what was done to them, but they live if for no other reason than to spite the people who did those awful things to them."

"What about you?"

"What about me?

"You have told me quite a bit about the girls. But what about Alecta? Who is she? What is she like?

"Look, it's hard to be forgotten when you were never thought very much of in the first place,' trying to get out of the bed, 'If you're too tired to drive home, I have room for you. Come, I can show you the way."

"Stay in bed. You've had enough excitement for a few days, and you need to stay off that ankle for a little bit. I can ride the couch. But I can promise you that you will never know that feeling again. We, the team, won't let it happen."

"Well, we shall see."

Morgan stood to walk out, Alecta watched him. In her heart of hearts she knew he was trying to make every effort to make her feel like she finally had friends, people that cared about her. It was the same thing that Rossi had tried to accomplish years ago, but just never followed up on. She only recognized the feeling from when she had Kevin in her life. And maybe Yuri and Impatiev. She wasn't sure she should trust him; she had a lot of good excuses not too. Scrunching her eyes tightly shut and taking a deep breath….

"My story doesn't matter so much….."

"What if it matters to me?"

Alecta was sitting up in bed, her legs dangling over the side, her head in her hands trying to get it together.

"Why does it though?"

"You're a friend of Penelope's, that's all I need to know. If she cares about a person, then that means there's something there inside that person worth caring about."

Alecta heaved a heavy sigh.

"I was married years ago to a man named Yuri. Sergei, you met him in L.A., is his brother. They were identical. I fell in love with him rather quickly. Our relationship….everything was just….it wasn't long at all before we were expecting our daughters. They were twins….I think twins ran in his family on both sides. Lucky me right. While I was carrying them, we flew out to Russia and made our way to the village that he and Sergei grew up in. To say that the girls were nearly born in Russia would be an understatement. We had only been back in the states for about two, maybe three weeks when they made their appearances. We got married in Russia while I was pregnant. Hand me that book please."

Morgan handed her a rather large binder. Alecta turned to a page. Morgan realized it was a photo album.

"This was our wedding picture. That little old man is the Orthodox Patriarch that officiated. I miss that little old guy. He was the cutest thing I've ever seen. His long beard and that big hat. I have a room set up for him as I do at all of my places; should he ever come for a visit, I wanted him to have his own quiet place. He actually visits quite often."

She quietly flipped to another page.

"This was Yuri's parents. His momma gave him hell for letting me take such a long flight as pregnant as I was. She wasn't really mad at him, just being a mom. But she teased me about the fact that I was nothing but belly. I never did gain much weight during any of the pregnancies I had, it was mostly baby. Like with the last one, Sofie and Emma, I only gained a total of about 30lbs. But that belly…I felt like a total whale."

"But you weren't."

"Yeah, well I couldn't see my feet, I kept wearing miss matched colored shoes…of course seeing Reid's socks, now I don't feel so bad. I ate like an elephant. And my mood swings were horrible. As dangerous as Yuri and Sergei could be, they feared me with their very lives while I was pregnant."

Alecta turned yet another page.

"This was my son; my dear, sweet baby boy. This was taken when he was about five months old, just before I went undercover. He was never a little baby. When he was born, he was nearly 15lbs and 24 inches long. They never told me I'd give birth to a two year old. I was on bed rest with him the last trimester. That pregnancy had put such a strain on my health. I had all sorts of back problems; breathing issues...I suppose he was nearly too big considering how small I am built. But he was a wonderful baby. He rarely ever cried. He slept through the night almost from the very beginning. He would smile and laugh all day. He was such a darling little boy."

Morgan could sense a sadness creeping into her.

Alecta shut the book. She leaned over and rifled through the drawer on her night table. She pulled out a small photograph, must've been about a 4x6.

"This was taken while I was recovering in the hospital after the undercover operation shut down. It was supposed to last for six months and instead it lasted for two years. These are those same twin girls; they were on the verge of starting kindergarten soon. They were thrilled. Yuri had been working with them to teach them their alphabet and their numbers. They already knew how to spell everybody's name. They were just so happy; you couldn't get them to be quiet, they were always rambling with questions asking what kindergarten would be like. And this is my baby boy. He was nearly three. His potty training was over. He was talking a good bit. He was still huge, not obese, just…like I said, he'd never been little. He was going to be humongous like his father."

Morgan noticed Alecta sniff a little bit as she pulled the next picture out.

"This was taken my last day in the hospital, just before I was completely checked out. A nurse took the picture of all of us together….Yuri had brought the kids in. As usual Oleg, my son, climbed up on the bed to snuggle with me, and like always, he whispered in my ear 'I love you mommy'. He had never forgotten me. The first time I heard him say it, I couldn't stop crying. I had only been in the hospital for a couple of days at that point. And the thing I feared the most, out of all I had been through, was that my babies had forgotten me. And Oleg was the first one to say it out of the three. I don't think there was ever anything sweeter ever said. But that's all of us together. Me, Yuri, the kids. It was always funny to me how much they always looked like him. They all had his platinum blonde hair, that's not me. And the girls had green eyes like his momma. Oleg had his blue ones; all the kids had Yuri's rosy cheeks. This was the last picture I ever got to have taken of my children."

"What happened?"

"About an hour or two later, after my release forms were all completed, Yuri and the kids helped the nurse roll me in the wheel chair out to the portico near the emergency room. Oleg rode in my lap, he didn't want to be away from me for a minute. I could barely go to the bathroom without him having a fit. Sasha and Katrine gave me kisses on my cheeks then they went and stood by their father. Oleg leaned in and gave me a sloppy wet baby's kiss on one cheek, hugging my neck. Yuri picked him up. He and the children went to the car; Yuri buckled the kids in. As Yuri turned to get into the driver's seat, he looked up at me and smiled. He always did have such a lovely smile. Once he was in behind the wheel he tried to crank the car. It wouldn't start. He tried again, same thing, it wouldn't start. After the third try he realized what was wrong. He looked at me through the windshield….I don't think I will ever forget the look on his face. I'll go to my grave seeing that look in his eyes. His eyes were so full of fear and regret. I had never seen him afraid of anything the entire time we knew each other, he'd never been afraid of a damned thing. But he was terrified now…."

Tears had started just pouring down her cheeks; Alecta had to pause to pull herself together enough to finish telling the tale.

"What happened sweet heart?"

"I just kept looking at him trying to figure out what his problem was. Then….then…the car…it exploded. My babies, my poor dear sweet babies were trapped in that car, and it was just…and Yuri, he was a good man; at least to me."

That's when the damn broke, the thought of her babies being trapped in a car that was rigged with explosives. She cried so hard then, it sounded as though she would never stop, but soon she was trying to force herself to stop crying.

"This was retaliation by the traffickers. They figured out what my involvement had been. It's what sent me into the funny farm."

She couldn't stop crying no matter how hard she tried.

"You can cry if you want to. Nobody is going to make you stop."

"But what's the point? When I stop, they're still going to be gone. Trust me, I've tried begging God that one day I would wake up, and it would all be some horrible nightmare. I've promised to give up everything I ever owned in my life….I'd give everything I have….And it's like nothing is ever enough…"

She could not make herself stop crying. Morgan wrapped his arms around her, and the very notion that she had somebody that wanted to do that at all seemed to make her cry harder. Morgan didn't know what to do. And as if reading his mind Immogene came to the door of the room. Quietly she strode into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, and then she got some water in a glass that sat near the sink. Coming back into the room she sat the glass of water down and sat a bottle of ibuprofen next to it and smiled at Derek.

"She's going to be brewing a killer headache when she wakes up if she doesn't take a few of these,' she whispered and walked back out.

Morgan would never be able to thank the girl enough.

Finally Morgan got Alecta to sit up on her own and take the pills with some of the water. She lay back down and Morgan pulled the covers back up over her. She was watching every move he made; her eyes, for all the tears that had just been shed had not lost any of the weariness that seemed to cloud them. Morgan ran a hand through her hair and then turned to leave, by the time he made it to the bedroom door she was out cold; he made his way back downstairs to the living room. He'd ride the couch like he promised. There was a blanket that was draped over the back, and there were plenty of pillows, he'd make do. But he wasn't leaving tonight. No. He wanted to stay and find out what more he could learn. Before going to sleep Morgan texted Garcia 'Baby Girl, I'm staying over at Lex's place. Will call or come over later. She had a rough night after all.'

Garcia soon sent a reply thanking him for keeping her in the loop and she told him that she might stop by the place later to see Alecta herself.

It was like Rossi said all along, if you gave her enough space, slowly but surely everything would come out in the wash. But Morgan wasn't always the most patient of men. It was one of his only failings that anyone could find, his lack of patience at certain times.

Post AN: Weird spot to end it, yes. I know. But I hope to make up for it with the next chapter or two that I post for this story.