Chapter 13: So Low For How High?

When he woke up the next morning, he felt everything and nothing. There was guilt and shame. There was sadness and heartache. There was emptiness and fear.

Before Derek left, he took a final look at the physical manifestation of his emotions, words, and actions from the previous night.

Then all he felt was regret.

Since the pair had been trying to keep their relationship a secret, it wasn't surprising for Morgan to walk in alone, even if he did seem...off. It was, however, strange for Reid to walk in, red eyed and grim, with Garcia not far behind him. If that wasn't enough, she was being downright motherly to Reid while still managing to give Morgan a glare that could kill most men.

'Mother of douche,' Aaron brooded. 'Fuck, I better let this play out so I've got some fucking amount of plausible deniability if this all goes to shit.'

She wasn't sure what to make of Morgan and Reid's behavior. Anyone could see that the two men were still upset with each other, to the point that Emily was starting to wonder if they'd actually broken up. The utter misery that they were both desperately trying to keep to themselves was as oppressive as a muggy summer day.

That was why she only felt slightly embarrassed about staying away from the bullpen as much as was humanly possible. She'd considered hunkering down in Garcia's lair to be an option before quickly dismissing it after remembering the war path the technical analyst had been on earlier in the morning. While it was obvious she didn't actually need ask Dave for his opinion about a pretty straight forward consult, his office probably was the best place to camp out until things got better and using a relatively transparent excuse to get out of there made her feel less guilty.

She sighed. '...it's just gonna be one of those days.'

She'd managed to extract a few details from Reid when she brought him to work and wasn't quite sure what to think. It was strange that Morgan never came home, but she couldn't quite wrap her head around the idea that it automatically meant Morgan had cheated. She even called Tony when she had a free moment to get his take on things; while he didn't seem pleased with Morgan's actions, he didn't think Morgan was angry enough to fuck up that royally.

Penelope's suspicion gave way to anger – that Morgan had been extremely hypocritical in his jealousy, that he'd made Reid feel ridiculously insecure in the first place, that he hadn't come home and thus, made Reid fret even more.

It didn't help that she was feeling rather ticked off at the rest of the team. She'd taken some time to watch the security feeds and saw how everyone completely ignored both men. Sure, she'd expected it, but she was still entirely appalled by her co-workers' behavior. These were smart people who knew far more about psychology than she ever would and they sure as hell knew how to talk an emotionally disturbed unsub off the proverbial ledge...and yet, their emotional IQs appeared to plummet exponentially when it came to any signs of distress coming from within the team. The only reasonable explanation she could come up with was that their moratorium on profiling each other made them too hesitant to actually act when they noticed things getting bad. Even more infuriating was the fact that they knew how disastrous the consequences of ignoring problems could be – it had completely destroyed Elle and her career, allowed Reid's drug habit to fester, contributed to Gideon's burn out, and nearly demolished Hotch.

She wasn't about to sit on the sidelines and let Morgan and Reid's relationship to flounder because of what she hoped was just one big misunderstanding.

The email popped up in his inbox as it neared lunch time - "You. Me. Noon. That Indian place down the street. No is not an acceptable answer."

He wasn't hungry, but it didn't matter - Derek knew better than to ignore Garcia's "request" when she was already obviously pissed off about something, even if he wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Okay."

She sat silently through the car ride and waited patiently for the waitress to take their order before finally speaking.

"What the fresh hell happened after I left last night?" she asked, trying her best to stay calm.

Morgan pinched his nose. "I don't even know Garcia. I was just so jealous and upset, I wasn't even thinking about consequences."

"Well, maybe you should have!" She couldn't help the venom in her voice and she saw Morgan visibly flinch.

"I fucked up, I know I did," he admitted, hanging his head slightly, "but he shouldn't have..."

"Are you seriously blaming Reid for all this?" she interrupted, disturbed by the fact that she was starting to wonder if Morgan actually had cheated on Reid.

"No, not for all of it. My mistakes are my own, and I mean...look, I didn't think I'd pushed him that far, but no matter how guilty he feels, I'm not going to take the blame for his actions and you shouldn't expect me to."

Now she was just plain confused. "What are you even talking about?"

"Garcia, how is it in any way my fault that Spencer cheated on me?"

She frowned. "How can you even think that? That poor boy..."

"He didn't come home last night," Morgan stated, cutting her off.

And with that, all the pieces started falling into place...except one.

Spencer's phone vibrated and he found just one simple text on his screen - "it's not what it seems"

'...great, Garcia interfered AND feels the need to send me cryptic texts about it, perfect...' he ruminated.

He'd done a fairly decent job at avoiding Derek all morning, but after lunch, Derek became intent on getting his attention. Knowing paperwork and flat out ignoring the man wouldn't continue to be a viable option much longer, especially with his coffee mug running dangerously low, he braced himself for a conversation he wasn't ready to have. Sure enough, when he got up to get coffee, Derek trailed behind him.

"We need to talk."

He sighed. "I can't do this today, not after last night and definitely not while we're at work." He bit his lip, trying to be strong. "I just...I need some space."

"I wouldn't have brought it up here, except...before you go home, I needed you to know that I'll fix the hole in your living room wall."

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he was able to respond. "You'll...what?"

Derek grimaced. "I'm sorry, I really am, it's just... Look, when I woke up on your couch this morning and you hadn't come home, I kinda assumed you cheated on me."

He raised an eyebrow. "So you punched my wall? When did property damage become an acceptable response to baseless assumptions?"

"In my defense, those walls are very thin," Derek tried to joke.

"My patience is running thin," he muttered. "Wait, how did you get in?"

It had been a point of contention when Derek gave him a key and he hadn't reciprocated, but he hadn't felt ready and Derek had eventually understood. If nothing else, the makeup sex had been memorable.

"That's why I used the hide-a-key from your rear tire well," Derek explained.

That made sense and his anger was fading, which meant he needed to make this quick."Okay, I guess...you can come over and fix it this weekend because that really needs to be fixed. But Morgan, it's really messed up that we don't trust each other. I mean, yeah, I trust you to have my back in the field, but the fact that neither of us trusts the other not to cheat? That's not...healthy and I don't know how to deal with that. I guess what I'm trying to say is...I'm sorry, I'm still gonna need some space."

Spencer turned towards the coffee pot, hoping that he wouldn't see Derek's face fall, but it didn't matter much - the pain was heavy in his response. "Sure, uh, whatever you need Reid."

His heart was breaking, but he knew he was doing the right thing. Better now before Derek started feeling responsible for him. Better now while he still had a reason that wouldn't be questioned.

As Derek walked back to the bullpen, Spencer closed his eyes in a futile attempt to make the nausea and blurry flashes of colored light disappear.

A/N -

1) Happy "Today Is The Start Of Season Seven" day!

2) This chapter was so frustrating! I had about a third done when I posted the last chapter, then decided I didn't like Morgan's first bit (too revealing, needed more suspense; I was already pissed at myself for impulsively posting the last chapter), so I re-wrote that entirely. Then I had about 90% of the chapter done when I realized...it was ALL WRONG and had to scrap everything except Morgan's first bit (so...4 sentences?). The problem was I'd made the teammates too emotionally available, which is sooooo not canon. They all ignore things until they fester and occasionally destroy their coworkers. Hell, even the amount of Garcia "fixing" things is...possibly more than she might do in canon. IDK.

3) Sorry about the entirely infrequent updates. Summer is the busiest time of year at work (everyone wants vacation time, so everyone else works overtime) and it hasn't left me much time to be really write much, which was made harder when this chapter started driving me nuts. Also, I'd forgotten how shitty season 6 is, especially with how terrible the characterization is, and it's making me slightly depressed to re-watch the episodes. Still, I have notes on episodes 8-11 and a vague plan of what's coming up.