Morgan walked into the bullpen as sick as a dog. He had to drag his butt to work and was determined not to be sent home. He sat down at his desk having a coughing attack. He prayed that Hotch wouldn't notice.
"Are you okay?" Emily asked.
"Yeah." That couldn't have been any farther from the truth. His voice was very hoarse when he spoke and his throat stung. He stopped himself from going through all of his symptoms. It would only make him feel worse.
Emily didn't believe him for one second but didn't push the subject.
Morgan didn't know why, but he had the strongest urge to see Hotch.
He opened the door to Hotch's office.
"Morgan," Hotch said in acknowledgement of his presence, not looking up from the files he was reading. Morgan wondered vaguely how Hotch always knew who was coming without looking. "What can I do for you?"
"Hey, Hotch. I just came here because…uh. Well, um…" Morgan tried to remember what he had wanted to say, but it was hard when all these black dots were suddenly dancing across his vision and he felt so awful.
"Your articulateness today is inspiring," Hotch said wryly, still absorbed in his work.
"Er—yes. Hey, why's it so hot in here?" Morgan asked croakily, and his voice sounded kind of weird, even to his own ears. He had another coughing attack and began hacking deeply and desperately, trying to get the mucus out of his abused lungs so he could breathe.
Hotch looked up at this now and Morgan thought that his face paled suddenly, but it was hard to tell because the black dots were blooming and growing to encompass his entire view of the office.
"Shit, Derek," Hotch breathed upon seeing Morgan, who was swaying alarmingly and had a sheen of sweat on his pale face. He stood and quickly began crossing the room, sensing that Morgan wouldn't be standing up much longer.
"Hotch… I don't feel so good. I'm going to sit down for a minute. Okay?" Morgan asked weakly. And then suddenly he was falling, but it didn't matter because Hotch was there to grab him before he hit the ground. The last thing he felt before he surrendered to unconsciousness was Hotch's strong arms holding him up. Hotch's here, Morgan thought dimly as he faintly heard Hotch calling for Rossi. So I'll be okay now.
"Dave!" Hotch yelled as he dragged Morgan over to the couch and sat him down gently before stepping back to assess the situation anxiously. Morgan was just sitting there, slowly blinking. He clearly wasn't recognizing his surroundings and it was freaking Hotch out. "Dave!"
It looked like he was going to have to at least start dealing with this on his own until Rossi finished doing whatever the hell it was that was delaying him so much. Right— first things first. Hotch tentatively reached out and placed his hand on Morgan's forehead, cringing at the heat he felt there— definitely a fever.
Morgan's eyelids fluttered briefly open at the contact, revealing hazy, fever-bright brown eyes, which Harvey added to his mental list of symptoms. Morgan tried to lean into the coolness of Hotch's hand before his head lolled to the side and he gave up and drifting back to sleep or unconsciousness— Hotch couldn't tell which. Lethargy.
He then added Morgan's unhealthy pallor, flushed cheeks, and perspiring brow to the list, satisfied with his budding talent as a diagnostician. But perhaps the most troubling symptom was Morgan's labored breathing— he was wheezing and taking breaths that were far too shallow to be natural, not to mention the slight rattling noise his chest was making upon inhaling and exhaling.
Morgan's eyes opened again as he descended into the throes of another coughing fit. It made Hotch's chest hurt in sympathy listening to the younger man struggle to clear his congested lungs.
Rossi rushed into the room holding a thermometer.
"How in the-?" Hotch started.
Rossi cut him off. "Emily told me that Morgan came into work sick today but refused to go home. He is such a hard head some times." Then he turned to Morgan. "Wake up, kid."
Morgan blinked a few times. "Rossi?" he croaked.
"I hear you don't feel so good, huh?" Rossi said.
Morgan shook his head and sniffled pathetically.
"Alright, well why don't we take your temperature, okay?" Rossi continued softly. Morgan nodded again and dutifully opened his mouth for him.
They all waited in silence for a few moments while the thermometer did its work. Rossi seemed perfectly at ease, Morgan was just kind of out of it, and Hotch was pacing around in the background.
Rossi took the thermometer to read it and Hotch and felt his heart plummet in his chest when he turned to him and motioned him over, a flash of concern illuminating his face for the first time since he had entered the office.
"You're going to have to take him to the hospital or the doctor's, Aaron," he said in a hushed tone. "This isn't just a cold— his fever's at 103.1. That's bad." Hotch nodded and helped Morgan to his car.
When they got to the hospital, Hotch parked and half-dragged, half-carried Morgan into the emergency room where he was given several forms to fill out by a harried nurse who looked like she hated her life. He ushered Morgan over to a small two-person bench and sat down next to him, figuring that this way he'd be able to catch the young man if he keeled over again. What he didn't expect was for Morgan to immediately snuggle into his side, rest his head on Hotch's shoulder, and fall back asleep, apparently having decided that Hotch would make a good pillow.
Morgan's flushed face looked peaceful and Rossi wasn't here to take embarrassing pictures, so Hotch decided to just let it be. He began filling out the forms, grateful that Morgan was on his left side so that his writing hand was free.
"Are you allergic to anything?" Hotch asked the air, trying to diffuse a little of the one-sided tension he was feeling.
Morgan didn't answer, of course; he was still asleep. What he did do was scoot even closer to Hotch. Now Hotch's left arm was pinned to his side uncomfortably. He realized that he could feel the heat radiating off Morgan's body through his suit and hoped that the doctor would hurry up.
His left arm was starting to lose feeling so he had no choice but to pull it out from where it was wedged between his body and Morgan's and put it around Morgan's shoulders, effectively drawing him even closer in a sort of sideways hug. He felt like a father comfortingly wrapping an arm around Morgan like this—like he would do for Jack. It had been a very long time since he had physical contact with someone like this since Haley and Jack were placed in witness protection and he had forgotten how…nice it was to feel the weight of another human being leaning on him, depending on him for comfort.
He filled the forms out as best as he could, although there were several gaps in his knowledge about Morgan's medical history that he knew he'd have to rectify later.
Finally the doctor came over.
"Agent Hotchner, I am Dr. Brown. I'm guessing you're here because Agent Morgan isn't feeling too well, eh?" Dr. Brown boomed so loudly that Morgan shifted and opened his eyes. When he realized that he was leaning onto Hotch he blushed and weakly pushed away, carefully avoiding eye contact with his boss. Hotch thought he heard Morgan mutter "no shit, Sherlock," in Dr. Brown's general direction and resisted the urge to smirk.
"That would be correct," Hotch said a bit more diplomatically. He hoped Morgan's fever had gone down a little— who knew what Morgan would tell Dr. Brown now that he was half delirious with fever?
"Alright, well, why don't you bring him back and we'll have a look and see what we can do about making him feel better!" Dr. Brown said, taking the clipboard of forms from Hotch and scanning through them.
"You don't know if your agent is allergic to anything?" Dr. Brown said, looking at the sections Hotch had left blank in puzzlement.
"Penicillin," Morgan rasped quietly. Hotch winced; that was definitely something he should have known. What if Dr. Brown had prescribed that for Morgan without him knowing?
"I didn't have time to finish filling out the forms," Hotch said lamely, because the blank spots were patched all over and not just at the end. Dr. Brown still looked a bit confused but didn't press the issue.
"Alright, well, I'll just ask if I need to know any of the information you didn't have a chance to fill out. Come on, we can head back to the examining room," Dr. Brown said, leading them back through the double doors and out of reception. It was slow going; Morgan was still leaning heavily on Hotch for support.
They got into the examination room and Hotch helped Morgan onto the table.
"Alright, so what seems to be the trouble?" Dr. Brown asked as he washed his hands and pulled on gloves.
"He's been coughing a lot, and it sounds pretty bad. There's also a fever of a little over 103, chills, dizziness, lethargy— he's been completely out of it the past hour or so. Fainted for a minute when he came into my office at work," Hotch listed, trying to keep the concern out of his tone and resisting the urge to wring his hands together nervously.
Dr. Brown began checking Morgan out then, feeling his lymph nodes and listening to his heart rate and telling him to breathe deeply (which only resulted in Morgan trying to hack his lungs up). Although Morgan was responsive to what Dr. Brown asked of him, he didn't say anything and he seemed to be submerged in a feverish haze.
Dr. Brown had him stick a thermometer under his tongue and when it beeped he frowned slightly.
"It's at 103.3 now," he said. "That's very high, but it's not life threatening until it starts getting past 104 or 105. I'm sure he's okay— with a fever this high some degree of delirium is to be expected. It's definitely pneumonia, Agent Hotchner. I'm going to put him on a pretty aggressive dose of antibiotics and write a prescription for an inhaler in case the coughing gets too bad. Fortunately it's walking pneumonia at this point so he can go home with you and recover there. Make sure he gets a lot of rest and plenty of fluids— and he'll probably have a lingering cough for a week or two." Dr. Brown said, beginning to scrawl out prescriptions. "But bring him back immediately if his fever gets above 104 or if he seems to worsen dramatically. You're lucky you came in now— if you had waited a few more hours it could have gotten much worse and we'd be looking at at least a week-long hospital stay."
"Alright," Hotch said, shaking the doctor's hand before helping Morgan out of the room.
Fortunately the hospital had a pharmacy where they were able to get Morgan's medicine and inhaler ready very quickly, so Hotch got the pills and managed to get Morgan to the car where he wearily lay down in the backseat. Hotch quickly texted Rossi to let him and the rest of the team know the diagnosis and that they were on their way back to Morgan's house.