IV. MORGAN
He felt the vibration push through his body and echo in his joints like a gunshot. His eyes were on the road as the vehicle he was traveling in raced down it, but his mind was a million miles away.
Perhaps not quite a million. Perhaps just back in Georgia.
Those two days were still so crystal clear in his mind. Realizing that Hotch had sent his two junior agents right into a madman's hands. Racing like hell to get there. Finding JJ disheveled and slightly injured in the barn. Discovering the drag marks in the field.
Watching Reid be tortured.
The kid was like a little brother to him, someone who still reeked of innocence. Someone who despite his vast intelligence, still hadn't quite gotten the memo about what a horrible place the world really was.
And for that, Derek Morgan was grateful.
Or at least he had been until Tobias had slashed his way into all of their lives.
"Derek?" Emily Prentiss said from his side. She felt his hand slide over his shoulder and squeeze down. "She'll be okay."
Morgan turned slightly and nodded. "I know that."
JJ was like a sister to him. Not a baby sibling like Reid, more like one just a few years younger. And because she was older and usually more responsible, he tended to hold her to a higher standard. He tended to expect her to pull it together faster.
But even he knew that that wasn't fair at all.
"Okay," Hotch started, turning in his seat. Positioned next to him in the shotgun position was Jason Gideon. "When we get there, Gideon and I will go talk to the detective in charge, find out what happened. You two go to JJ's house and try to get inside."
"Any way you have to," Gideon said solemnly.
Morgan nodded and turned back to stare out the window. The trees around the area were getting denser, which meant that they were approaching JJ's neighborhood. He'd been over here a few times, usually for get-together kind of parties. JJ was the queen of those. She loved to throw a Christmas one every year.
And damn if that party didn't love to rock.
He smiled a bit, remembering the one from just about two months earlier. How there'd been enough hooch in the eggnog to get a giant drunk on one drink. How he'd nearly lost it watching a slightly drunk JJ try to teach a completely plastered Reid how to box-step.
How seeing Reid just about falling down drunk had given him punchlines for a year.
But Tobias had taken that away, too. And just like that, the smile faded from Morgan's face.
"We're here," Hotch said suddenly, breaking Morgan from his thoughts. The group immediately jumped out of the car. The scene was crowded with on-lookers and cop cars. In the middle of it was a coroner's van.
"This way," Morgan indicated to Prentiss, pointing towards JJ's townhouse. Prentiss hadn't made it to the party, had been too new at the time to feel comfortable accepting the invitation. Of course she'd said she'd had previous plans, but Morgan had known the truth. They all had. And then because at that time she'd been too new to them as well, they'd just shrugged and let her get away with it.
But she was family now.
This was a family. And JJ was like a sister.
No, she was a sister. Just as Reid was a brother.
"Morgan," Gideon called out. Morgan turned to face his mentor. "Any way you have to," he reiterated.
Morgan nodded and then he and Prentiss turned and made their away from the row of police cars, up towards the townhouse that belonged to JJ.
When they got to the front door, painted bright red just to add a splash of color, they saw a man in jeans and an overcoat waiting there. A gun on his hip showed he was on the job. When he saw Morgan, he lit up, not exactly smiling ear to ear, but welcoming his friend just the same.
"Derek, my man."
"Hey, L.C," Morgan replied, taking the cop's hand. He turned towards Prentiss. "Agent Emily Prentiss, Detective Lance Crow of the DC Poloce Department. We went through the academy together."
"You ended up a cop," Emily noted needlessly,
Crow nodded. "FBI wasn't my style."
"Not enough tackling," Morgan shrugged as he took a step closer to JJ's front door.
"Haven't noticed that stopping you," Prentiss countered. Morgan turned and regarded her with a bit of bemusement before turning back towards the door.
"How long you been knocking?"
"Knocking and ringing the doorbell," Crow corrected. "Good forty minutes on and off."
"Yeah, and we've been calling her cell since you let me know twenty minutes ago," Morgan frowned. Then he leaned forward and pressed her face up against the long vertical window that allowed some view into the entry of the townhouse. Everything inside looked neat, in it's place, but that hardly reassured him.
Especially when he saw that the alarm panel was blinking green.
"She didn't arm her alarm last night," he said.
"Maybe she forgot," Crow offered, hand going to the butt of his gun. "I mean, the front door is locked. Not likely a bad guy storms the house and locks the door on his way out."
"No, not likely," Prentiss agreed. "But trust me, not unheard of. Adam Co-" She stopped halfway, deciding that Crow probably didn't need a listen in serial killer history. Then, shaking her head, she tried to go for the positive. "Wait, Morgan, maybe we're overreacting. Maybe she spent the night somewhere else. With someone else."
"Uh uh," Morgan said with a shake of his head. "Even if there was a guy, she'd had driven there, not let herself get picked up. You know her, when a case comes in, she's always the first one into the office. No way she'd risk not having wheels nearby if Gideon or Hotch called her."
"Okay, so what about someone on this street?" Prentiss tried again, the creased look on her face indicating that she no longer believed any of her own explanations.
"Don't think so. She went out on a date with a guy a few houses down, but I don't think it went well. She was pretty pissed off about it after it happened. I Think his name was Gibson something or other…"
"Gibson Barrett?" Crow put in suddenly, looking quite worried and even alarmed.
"Yeah, why?" Morgan asked, glancing at Prentiss, who also seemed concerned.
Crow turned and pointed down the street, towards the crimescene. Both Prentiss and Morgan could see Hotch and Gideon huddled up with the detectives in charge. "One of the dead guys over there, Gibson Barrett. Guy got ripped apart. The other vic – Jim Murdock – looks like he was just in the wrong place in the wrong time. He went down to see what all the noise was about and got butchered for his trouble."
"Morgan," Prentiss started.
She needn't have bothered. Morgan turned away from and Crow and putting his weight behind it, slammed his foot into the thick wood of the front door. It held for half a second and then cracked and slid inwards, allowing the trio entrance.
Immediately, all three pulled out their guns, each shouting "clear" as they surged into each room. Morgan tore up the stairs, saw that everything appeared to be in its place and then called out, "JJ?"
No response. He continued down the hall, his fingers tensing around his gun.
It'd been a long couple of months for all of them. Elle getting shot. Elle leaving. JJ getting nearly mauled by dogs. Reid being kidnapped. Reid cracking around them.
He didn't think the team could take anymore.
He knew he couldn't.
Moving to the end of the hallway, he stepped close to the closed bedroom door that was JJ's. He'd only been in it once, when she'd shown him the grand tour of the place during one of her parties.
"JJ?"
Again, no response.
Licking his lips, he reached out with his hand and pushed the door open. The room was bathed in sunlight and immediately he saw her lying there.
Blankets over her, earphones on, not moving. He could hear the sound of insanely loud rock music emerging from the white iPod earbuds.
Still, he called out: "JJ?"
She didn't stir. Behind him, he felt the presence of Prentiss and Crow. He turned to them, met the fear in their eyes with his own and then turned back to JJ and started towards her.
"JJ?" he said, his tongue suddenly very thick. He put his hand out and touched the blankets that were atop her. Then he shook them. "JJ?"
For a moment, nothing happened. And then slowly, her eyes opened. Blue, a bit foggy and more than a little confused. She blinked and reaching up, removed her earphones.
"Derek?"
"Oh, thank God," Prentiss breathed, re-holstering her gun.
"JJ, we've been calling you for the last hour and these guys have been hammering on the door, why the hell didn't you answer?" Morgan snapped, suddenly quite angry. He knew that his anger was more frustrated relief than actual fury, but that hardly helped.
"I…I guess I didn't hear," JJ replied, her confusion mounting. She turned towards her clock, saw that it was after ten. She was definitely late, but still, that was hardly reason for panic. Not this kind of panic anyway. "What's going on, why are you…why are you guys in my bedroom?" She placed the iPod on the nightstand, allowing everyone to see that the battery had been almost completely drained. It'd been on all night.
And then she looked down, suddenly seeming quite sheepish and embarrassed.
But instead of answering, Morgan turned to the nightstand and plucked up the bottle of sleeping pills. "How many of these did you take?'
"Two," JJ shot back, suddenly getting angry. "Just two." Then, just like that, she backed down. "Look, let me get dressed and I'll be out in a second, okay?"
For a moment, Morgan looked like he was going to refuse so Prentiss reached out and touched his arm. "Come on, Derek."
He met JJ's eyes and then turned and exited the room with Prentiss and Crow. "I'll, uh, wait for you guys downstairs," Crow offered.
"Thanks," Morgan said.
As Crow turned and headed down the stairs, Prentiss glanced back towards JJ's bedroom. "You think she took too many?"
"Don't know," Morgan replied, starting to calm down, starting to unwind. "No, probably not. Just enough to sleep for ten hours and with that damn music blasting in her ears…"
"She didn't hear a thing."
"Right."
"So…why are you so angry, then?" Prentiss asked, meeting his eyes.
Morgan looked down for a second. Then, with a sigh, "Because we missed it."
"It?" Prentiss queried, knowing damn well what he was talking about.
"I mean, we missed the reason she needed to take sleeping pills. And we seem to be missing it for everyone. Elle, Reid, JJ."
"We can only help them as much as they let us," Prentiss insisted.
"That's not true and you know it. We help them as much as we feel right doing. Hotch asks them if they're okay, Gideon offers riddles…but we don't actually help them. We don't actually ever force them to face their issues. And you know why that is, Em?"
"No," Prentiss replied quietly.
"Because if we do, then we open ourselves up for someone to ask us about our problems," Morgan told her. "And damn if we don't all like our secrets."
"Yes, we do," JJ said, exiting her bedroom and stepping out into the hallway. "Now if we're done with that, would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?"
Noticing that Morgan looked like he was about to flare again, Prentiss stepped forward and addressed JJ, "There was a murder a couple houses down from you. Gibson Barrett."
"Barrett? Really?" JJ blinked. Her expression was oddly unreadable.
"Yeah," Morgan nodded. "Gideon and Hotch are over there finding out the details."
"Okay," JJ said. "Then let's join them." And with that, she turned and walked away from Morgan and Prentiss, her body language quite pointed in saying that discussion was over.
Morgan's look said otherwise.