Author's note: This chapter was beta'd by Tom, AKA Defying Fate. Read and review. As always, lemme know what you guys think. ;)

Chapter 5 - Conflicted

"Wow, you cheat!" Steven eased back in the straight back chair, mouth agaped in disbelief that thanks to the help of a certain someone, he had just lost a game of Connect Four to a 3 year old.

Derek flashed that award winning bright white smile as a taunt directed at the youngster. "Come on now, don't be a sore loser." He smoothed his fingers gently through the thick black hair belonging to the smiling toddler sitting on his lap.

Steven's eyes bugged out of his head. "Sore loser? You helped him!"

"Only a tiny bit," winked Morgan, continuing to taunt the 16 year old as Michael suddenly found interest in the elder man's hands being on his head. The small boy lifted up his arms and obliviously reached for Derek's hands as the teenager proceeded to clear the game board, ready for revenge.

Steven opened the bottom of the rack as the black and red circular game pieces clattered from their nesting place onto the hard brown surface of the round mahogany kitchen table they were all seated at. "Okay, you know what? Come on. Me and you." An intense, but playful look was plaguing Steven's face as he threw down the gauntlet to the 26 year old FBI Agent.

"Ooooooh," taunted CJ, folding her arms as she slightly leaned rearward, the wavy design of the wooden chair back meeting the hind of her form fitting black and white striped blouse.

Morgan was humorously taken aback at the youngster's bold words. "Whoah, whoah, whoah…"

CJ cut him off, smiling at how caught off guard he was. "Whoah whoah, nothing, Derek Morgan, I think he just issued a challenge."

Morgan grinned and lightly shook his head. "I don't think so," he muttered, taking a long sip of the half gone Hardees milkshake he had been working on at a quick pace.

"You're gonna back down in your own house?" cracked CJ.

"Yep," Morgan quickly shot back, placing the clear see through cup back on the table.

"What a wuss," taunted Steven, causing CJ to laugh, Michael suddenly doing the same. Morgan flashed a playfully offended look at the 3 year old sitting on his lap.

"You too?" joked the FBI agent, his teasing expression showing anything but seriousness. The high pitched giggling continued to which Morgan reacted by relentlessly attacking both sides of the toddler with his forefingers, the tickling causing the child to squirm all over the chair, laughing even harder as the soft sensations took him over. Morgan relented long enough to gently set the child back upright on his lap, delivering a tender kiss to his temple.

"He's gonna grow up to be just like you. A cheater!"

"You're gonna grow up to be a handsome little heartbreaker, aren'tcha?" CJ reached out her arm to squeeze Michael's delicate little cheek as he giggled once more, CJ warmly smiling back.

"Yeah, if he's not surgically attached to me before then." Morgan playfully put his arm around Michael's neck, leaving a big enough gap to where the boy could easily slip out of the loose hold, only for Morgan to entrap him once more.

"It's kinda weird that he likes you this much," observed Steven, lining up the game pieces according to color. "He's always been too afraid to trust people."

"I'm starting to find out he's afraid of a lot of things." Morgan went to put his arm around Michael's neck again, but this time the toddler dodged it, smiling at how clever he thought he was as Morgan kept attempting to 'get him' again.

"I take it you didn't sleep alone when that storm rolled through the other night?" Steven's indication was that he was speaking from experience as Michael's foster sibling, all the stormy nights he remembered them spending together while sharing a bedroom.

"Nope," responded Morgan, continuing his arm game with the 3 year old while also validating Steven's assumptions.

"I thought so. Michael hates storms."

CJ's phone suddenly started to go off. Nobody really paid any attention to the high pitched ringtone, as she started to dig in her pocket for the Nokia 7110. "You know what I hate worse than storms," she interjected.

"What's that," replied Derek.

"This damn phone." She slid the black button cover down and hit 'talk,' pressing the cold phone against her ear. "hello…" A wave of static greeted her on the other end, drowning out the voice of the individual, although she knew exactly who the caller was. "huh…hold on Gideon, I can barely hear you."

"See if you can get a better reception in the other room," advised Morgan.

CJ laid the phone on her shoulder. "I haven't had this problem until today," she complained. "It's like something's interfering with the signal in this area." She then rose from her chair. "I'll be right back," she muttered, before walking into the living room, a wall separating her from the rest of the individuals in the house.

Steven looked at Morgan in confusion. "Gideon?"

"You remember Hotch and Gideon from the hospital," the FBI Agent answered, trying to stop Michael from putting one of the game pieces into his mouth. He lightly tapped the child on the back of the hand for attempting to pick up another piece. The 3 year old started to whimper, but Morgan quelled it with another tender kiss on the temple. "I don't want you to choke, kid," he softly explained, hoping the child would understand why he was suddenly being so resistant. Michael responded by leaning back against the agent, his thick raven hair brushing past Morgan's thinly trimmed goatee as the back of his head rested against the agent's chest, the side of his face coming into contact with the soft fabric of the white wife beater Morgan was wearing.

"He's looking kinda sleepy there," observed Steven, tilting his head sideways while looking into the 3 year old's subtle features. Michael's clear brown skin appeared double tinted as the light split his face into two shades of tone. His teddy bear brown eyes glistened almost angelically as they started to grow heavier, and heavier, exhaustion starting to weigh them down.

"He's had a long day, and one nap. I was just waiting for that first yawn." As soon as Morgan said that, Michael's mouth hinged opened as he squinted his eyes and inhaled deeply, then exhaled, his lacrimal glands producing just enough liquid for a small stream to carelessly seep from his eye down his cheek. "And there it is," smirked Morgan, wiping the tear stream away with his thumb.

"I still can't get over how comfortable he is with you. I don't see how he could ever trust any adult again after what we've been through, much less an adult male."

"He knows I'm not the one who hurt you guys," Morgan explained, "and that I never would. He may have realized that after he saw me take down the suspect, and I told him he was safe."

"CJ said you shot Charles 13 times."

Morgan paused momentarily before smirking at the thought of Steven intently bringing up the action he had wrestled with all week. "CJ's right," he uttered, not feeling an ounce of remorse for that action.

"Daaamn," sighed the teenager. "It's too bad I didn't get a chance to see that."

"Kid, trust me, that's not something you wanna see."

"The hell it's not!" roared Steven, becoming suddenly offended as Morgan's eyes grew wide at the sudden outburst. "That bastard starved us, beat us, burnt me with an iron, burnt Michael's hand on the stove, tried to drown us both in the bathtub at least twice….the things he did were outrageous!"

"Steven…" Morgan tried to calmly interrupt, but Steven showed no signs of slowing down.

"As far as I'm concerned, you did the entire world a favor by offing that sorry son of a…"

"Steven," began Morgan again, preventing more profanity from the flustered teenager, "What Charles did to you guys was wrong, we know that. The important thing is that you two survived and have a chance…"

"…a chance at a better life?" picked up Steven, mockingly. "Are you kidding me? Do you know how many times I've heard that before? I'm 16 years old. I've been in the system since I was 9 when my parents were murdered during a grocery store holdup. I have no family, and no idea what's to come next, except that it can't be anything good. It never is."

"Steven…"

"I have YET to be shown any indication that I have a chance for a good life, and my life has been nothing but HELL!"

"Steven...I'm sorry…"

"Everybody's always sorry."

"No, listen to me. It may sound like something people just say, but I truly am sorry. I…"

"Sorry's not going to fix anything!"

Morgan waited a moment before continuing the conversation. "You said you were 9 years old when you lost your parents?"

"Yeah," replied Steven, still flustered.

"I was around that age when I saw my father shot and killed right in front of me."

Steven became silent, his attitude easing off a little bit as the thought sunk into his head. "Oh," he muttered, as if caught off guard.

"Yeah," uttered Morgan, softly, nodding his head.

Steven started to feel somewhat sympathetic. "I'm…" he began, without even realizing.

"Sorry?" finished the FBI Agent, smiling a bit.

Steven returned the smile. "Okay, we're even," he lightly joked.

"Look," began Morgan. "I've never been homeless and thankfully never have had to go through what you guys have gone through, but my life wasn't all that easy either."

"You had your mom, didn't you? How was life not easy for you?"

"Oh, in lots of ways. I got into trouble with the law, I got in fights, I was arrested – I was even s…" Morgan abruptly canceled the flow of that thought, not prepared to finish what he was about to say. Realizing what had almost come next, he started to also realize how that flow came without logic or preparation. He had almost revealed something to Steven that nobody, including even his own family even knew about, something he felt he had to keep to himself out of shear embarrassment and humiliation.

"Was what?" queried Steven, the look on Derek's face peaking his interest as to why the agent had suddenly stopped so short.

Morgan was a bit hesitant; Steven's intensified senses picking up on it. "I just had a lot of problems..."

"What were you about to say?" questioned Steven, stepping on the tail end of Morgan's statement.

"That's not important…"

"Agent Morgan," began the teenager, again speaking before Morgan's full sentence was out. "What were you about to say?"

"Steven…" began the agent, looking for a sensitive way to get the kid to back off.

"DAMMIT!"

Both of them turned their head in the direction of the outburst they heard from the other room, realizing CJ sounded to be having difficulty with something. Morgan began moving the sleepy toddler from his lap and stood up, draping him over his shoulder, temporarily, before setting him back down on the chair. "I'll be right back," he uttered, making sure Michael was situated safely on the seat as the decreasingly alert child stared straight ahead at Steven, looking somewhat zombified. Derek stopped to look at Michael for a second before walking in the direction of the living room.

"Hopefully with what you're obviously avoiding to tell me," quipped Steven with half a suspicious smile.

"Watch little man for me," instructed Morgan, indicating he was talking about a half-awake Michael, completely ignoring Steven's plea for him to spill an obvious secret he was keeping. Steven rose from his chair and walked over to the front of Michael's seat where he kneeled down, looking into the toddler's drooped weary face.

"What's up?" questioned Morgan, entering the living room where CJ stood in the foyer, putting her cell phone to her ear before looking down at it, an action which she repeated quite a few times as it appeared something was wrong.

"Okay, I told you my phone's been acting weird since we got here. Well, I was in the middle of a conversation with Gideon about a breaking development in the case, and the signal just dropped, and I can't get it back."

"Breaking development?" questioned Morgan, innocently.

"There's been another murder."

Morgan's brows tightened. "Related to this case?"

"Yeah," replied CJ, somewhat nervously.

"How do you know?"

"Gideon told me that one of the temps brought in a package dropped off in front of the main doors."

"Package?"

"In it, was a note…" she paused, hesitant to deliver the rest of the news.

"What about the note…" fished Morgan.

"Derek, the note was attached to a severed ear."

Morgan's eyes widened, as his nose scrunched in disgust, his top lip arching up. "What was on the note?"

"The location of the rest of the body, and a message that said "I'll see him soon."

Morgan eyes left her face and traveled off into the peripheral distance. "Cryptic taunt," he observed. His eyes traveled back to her face. "Cameras pick up who left the box?"

"The footage is being reviewed as we speak, but chances are the unsub was disguised."

"I thought Charles Bradley was our unsub."

"Well, you killed Bradley and yet people are still turning up dead and now we're being taunted, so what does that tell you?"

"Bradley was an accomplice?"

"Well, he obviously wasn't the leader."

"No, let's not rule that out yet." Morgan took a few steps away from his female counterpart, still pondering the suspiciousness of the situation.

"The BAU's conducting an investigation. You're off duty, no sense troubling yourself with this."

Morgan spun around. "What are you talking about, this is troubling to me. We've got more victims, an unsolved case and two lives that could still be in danger here if in fact Charles Bradley wasn't the end all be all. My time off isn't important..."

"The bureau will handle it," rebutted CJ before he could completely finish his statement.

"Last time I checked, I was apart of the bureau," fired back Morgan, before raising a brow. "Are you trying to say something to me right now?"

"Do you really want to do this now?" questioned CJ, her tone lowering slightly.

Morgan's suspicion continued to grow. "Do what now," he questioned, confused. "What are you talking about…" He stopped short as he started to piece together the puzzle. "Wait a minute…It's been less than a week since the incident, you suddenly show up here out of the blue after I've been told by the office that I've got 'time off from work…'" He stopped short once more after gathering all of the evidence and coming up with the truth.

"Derek…" began CJ, realizing what he knew what was going on.

"That son of a bitch…" smirked Morgan, cynically and angrily.

"Derek…."

He cut her off. "He suspended me and didn't even have the balls to do it to my face?"

She realized she more than likely wasn't going to get much of a word in edgewise as his tirade was only beginning. "Derek it wasn't…"

"And you were in on this whole thing?"

"I wasn't…"

"The hell you wasn't!" he bellowed, interrupting her again, much to her chagrin.

"Derek, Hotch didn't suspend you! It was Strauss!"

Morgan paused momentarily. "Chief Strauss personally suspended me?"

"She was getting heat from FBI brass about a young agent proving himself to be incapable of composure and professionalism in the field, and she diverted that pressure towards Hotch and put pressure on him to suspend you. Hotch refused, and saw through her intimidation tactics and once she realized he knew she wasn't going to suspend him, she made the decision to suspend you herself."

"Then why was I allowed to leave with my gun and…" Morgan stopped short once again, throwing the final missing piece into the puzzle of a situation as CJ stood quietly, looking down at the floor. "That's why you're here," he muttered as she continued avoiding eye contact.

"I was just…" she had started to look up at him but couldn't get her sentence out before he had once again cut her off.

"Oh wow," reacted Morgan with another cynical smile. "They send you here to here to drop the bombshell and then waltz outta here with my credentials and glock, huh? How flattering for you, Agent McClure."

"You know what," began CJ, reacting out of frustration, "don't be pissed off at me because you thought you were immune to the ramifications of playing Rambo!"

Morgan turned around and inched towards her, lowering his face down to hers. "I continue to stand by my actions," he uttered faintly, solitarily. "They might not have been as by the book as the bureau likes, but if they think protocol is more important than saving lives, then they can go to hell." Derek then started to walk away before she started reaching out for him.

"You don't mean that," she challenged.

Morgan turned around and started subtly easing towards her again. "I don't? Oh well, please, Clarissa Joe, enlighten me. You know, it's no secret I've been looked down upon since I got here. I'm 26 years old, I get it, I'm the rookie, the pretty boy with the hot temper who gets too emotionally involved. But I've shown, since day one, that I'm more than capable of doing my job and doing exactly what I took this job to do, and that's to protect the innocent. Sometimes to do that you have to go on instinct and not pander to politics and posturing."

"Derek, you massacred Charles Bradley…" muttered CJ, almost in a plea of trying to get him to understand why he was in such hot water with the bureau.

"SO WHAT?" roared Morgan. The outburst caught CJ off guard as her heart jumped in her chest. The look in his eyes was that of sheer anger – anger over the thought that he was apparently expected to feel remorse for what he did to a remorseless child abusing killer – remorse which he honestly knew he couldn't even force himself to feel. "Since when the hell was it our job to start caring more about those who commit the crimes than those who are the victims of these crimes?"

His tone suddenly dropped slightly as that cynical smile returned. "Sweetheart, did you not hear everything Steven said that those kids went through? I'm amazed that all of that can be overlooked because I may have gotten a little trigger happy in the heat of the moment."

"Derek, you completely snapped!" she bellowed back. "Snapping is a sign of weakness and shows that you are incapable of handling situations that you're always going to have to deal with as long as you're doing this job."

Morgan's face swiftly grew serious. "Let me tell you something," he began softly, but firm. "You hurt a child, like that sick bastard did, and you deserve to get a taste of how it feels. Except Charles is dead. He doesn't have to live with the scars that these kids have to carry for the rest of their lives. 3 year old Michael Dawson couldn't defend himself while at the mercy of a man who I knew had every intention on killing him. I made sure to put Charles Bradley in that same type of situation. He reached for a firearm. I see it as justified. If the bureau would rather be up to its ears in pandering, then maybe I'm not cut out for this job after all."

"Derek, our job is to understand how these killers think so we can track them down and get them off the streets."

"I did that," retorted Morgan rather quickly.

"No, you became the killer. There's a difference. You became what we hunt, and that's not what our job is about. Our job is to stop evil, not to spread it, not to even know where it came from. We're a force against it, not with it."

"CJ, I was thinking…"

"…about Michael, I know. But think about what Michael saw in that bedroom that night. Think about the violence you subjected him to. He sees one person brutally gunning another down – the repetitive ear bursting gunshots, all the blood. That's not any less of a frightening sight for an already traumatized child."

Morgan became silent, contemplating her words to a certain extent as his eyes once again wandered off into his peripheral sight. He closed his mouth and bunched his lips together as he often did when he was given an earful to consider.

"Yeah, you were thinking about Michael," continued CJ, softly, "but you were moreso thinking about living up to your alpha male spirit. You didn't like seeing that child hurt, so you went out of your way to hurt the unsub – not stop him, hurt him. How does the old expression go? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? That's when it gets personal, and that's what the bureau tries to avoid."

"So you agree with Strauss's decision?"

"Hell no!" she exclaimed, much to his surprise. "You didn't even give me a chance to say that we're all fighting it, including Hotch AND Gideon. You deserved some flack, but not a suspension. Bradley had a weapon, and firing was justified. It got personal, but it didn't get in the way of you doing your job. You put together a damn good profile and we were able to corner the suspect and rescue those kids. Now we have a chance to try and help them receive better care, and a better life. I don't think that deserves a suspension."

Morgan didn't want to admit it, but once again, she had a point. It had gotten personal. He didn't want to hash it over now, as a sudden thought, irrelevant to the conversation, suddenly hit him like a bolt of lightning. "What did you say was written on the note?" He found himself straying from the dialogue to nurture that thought while it was still fresh.

CJ was a bit suspicious to his sudden digression. "The words 'I'll see him soon.' The crime lab is running it for prints, why?"

"I just thought of something."

CJ started to slowly pick up the pace. "Sounds like they're hunting someone?" she suggested.

"Yeah, but why send a message like that to the BAU Headquarters unless it has to do with who they may be hunting?"

"Maybe to announce their intention to hunt one of us."

"Hunting us for getting involved with the case, hunting him…"

"Hunting the man who took down Bradley..."

"Hunting me."

"So they could be after you?"

Morgan folded his arms. "I'd say it's a safe bet. If Bradley was their leader, me killing him could mean they're plotting retaliation."

"Well, it's been about a half hour since that package was delivered. I'd call Gideon back, but I have absolutely no signal now." CJ looked down at her phone, which still was showing no signs of service in the area.

Morgan motioned his head in the direction of a landline sitting on a corner table. "Use my phone," he suggested.

CJ decided to take him up on that offer as she walked over to the table and took the black phone receiver off its hook. She was surprised at what she got. "No dial tone," she uttered, solitarily.

That caught Morgan off guard. "What?" He then walked over to the table and took the phone receiver from her, listening for himself. Nothing but silence greeted him at the end. He clicked the receiver button a few times, hoping for the off chance of him getting a dial tone. Still, nothing. It was puzzling to him. His phone had been working fine all day.

"Okay, I don't think it's a coincidence that both our phones are out," observed CJ, suspicion displaying in the tone of her voice.

"This…" He hadn't even gotten the full word out of his mouth before a loud popping noise caused both of them to jump, followed by the sound of glass shattering, the source appearing to have come from the kitchen. Morgan and CJ both spun around, before looking at each other worriedly, thinking one thing and one thing only.

Derek was the first one to dash out of the room towards the two children he left sitting at the kitchen table. He was greeted by a screaming 3 year old, which immediately sent him into protect mode as he rushed for Michael with a frantic expression plaguing his face. CJ was in quickly behind him, searching the room for Steven. He wasn't anywhere in sight, which sent her into a mild panic.

"Derek, I don't see Steven."

Morgan's heart started to beat heavily in his chest as he looked around the area while staying near the toddler. His eyes became hung on a site that caused his heartbeat to accelerate even more. "CJ…" he uttered, almost breathlessly.

The female agent glanced over at him briefly before her eyes would naturally jump over to the direction he appeared to be looking. What she saw caught her off guard. "Steven!" she exclaimed frantically, rushing to his aid, on instinct. Getting closer, she discovered him lying face down on the floor next to one of the kitchen chairs, motionless. Her heart rate had also accelerated at this point as she feared the worst.

Morgan wrapped the 3 year old child in his arms and not a moment too soon. More shrill bursts greeted them as Derek hit the floor with a firm grip on Michael, glass shards flying through the air, not discriminating as to where they would land. It was apparent that shots were being fired at the house from outside the kitchen window, much to everyone's apparent surprise.

Michael's crying intensified as he clung onto Morgan's torso for dear life, the ear bursting sounds too much for him to handle as his mind flashed right back to that fateful night in the bedroom of that house. Derek tried his best to shield the child with his body as he himself showed signs of worry and fear – fear for what was to come of this sudden development. In that moment, he was more concerned with the safety of the kids than that of himself.

Through the legs of the table he could see CJ shaking Steven, apparently trying to get him to come to. The teenager appeared to be out cold, showing no signs of consciousness whatsoever. He was still lying flat on his stomach, in a planking position with his arms strewn about on his side. "Is he okay?" called Morgan as more bullets continued to fly through the window, scaring Michael more and more with each shot fired. CJ didn't respond as she tried desperately to flip him over to check for any signs of trauma.

After continuous struggle, she had finally succeeded at her goal, but was not greeted with anything good.