(Hey all, hope I didn't really disappoint everyone with the last chapter, thinking we were just going to have happy fluff and then BOOM all kinds of drama again. Anyway, here's the next installment. Thanks for reading and for your patience when real life keeps me from updating as quickly as I'd like. Sadly, neither Morgan nor any of the rest of them are mine, I'm just entertaining myself in their world for awhile…)
Come Back To Me
Chapter Three
The perps whipped around, startled and tense, at the sound of the bells on the door clanging, announcing someone's entry into the little gas station convenience store. Their guns were both trained on him in seconds, and Morgan immediately froze, cursing himself for not paying better attention to his surroundings.
One of the punks turned back to keep covering the other people who been unlucky enough to be in the little building, whom they had already herded over against the far wall. Morgan was glad to see that it wasn't a large group of hostages. One attendant, a cashier, and three late-night shoppers. But the second thief, looking wild-eyed, paranoid, and much too young and nervous to be doing what he was doing, kept his gun aimed right at Morgan's chest. "What're you doin' in here, man?" he spat out angrily.
Morgan raised his hands up, hoping to look placating, non-threatening; this one was much too twitchy for it to be wise to push him very far. "Nothin'," he assured the hood, "I just came in to pay for the gas fill-up."
"Well, now you're just gonna have to hang out a minute. Keep those hands where I can see 'em and get over here with everybody else." He gestured impatiently with his firearm to the spot where his partner had the others corralled, and Morgan began to move as he was directed, slowly and deliberately, so as not to set the guy off.
He didn't challenge the order at all, but his eyes never stopped studying his two sudden captors, already profiling. They were young, wearing jeans and baggy black hooded sweatshirts, carrying guns that he knew, odds on, were stolen. They weren't the type that got approved for sale to people just walking in off the street and looking like trouble the way these two did.
What stood out as odd and most troubling was the fact that neither had made any sort of attempt to disguise or cover their faces. Had they come in planning to kill everyone in the store as well as rob it? Or were they simply that stupid and careless? And why hadn't they taken the money and run? Why were they still hanging around? None of it boded well, and the best Derek could figure, the faster he could get them out of there, even with all the profits from the till, it was a lot better than it becoming the high stakes hostage situation it was swiftly turning into.
"So, why ain't you split yet?" Morgan asked, letting his accent and the cadence of his voice slip easily back into the way he'd talked as a teenager running that rough Chicago neighborhood. "You all managed to get the cash out the register, didn't ya?"
"You all done seen us," the one training his gun on Morgan answered, licking his lips nervously, eyes darting around the four close walls. "Gotta make sure you keep your mouths shut."
"I'd be beatin' it outta here, 'fore the next patrol rolls through," Morgan urged, though trying to sound like it didn't matter to him one way or the other, ignoring the awful feeling that spread through him at their answer. There was only one sure way to keep that many people quiet about something like this, and he figured these two hoods knew that as well as he did.
"Whadda you know about it?" the other robber asked, glancing away from the rest of his hostages, narrowing his eyes at Morgan suspiciously.
"I know you don't want caught," Morgan said simply, standing his ground.
"Well, I ain't gonna be ID'd neither," the man shot back. "Why don't you get on over here with everyone else? Think you're special?"
Morgan shook his head and strode over, knowing getting them angry would only make a bad situation worse. If he couldn't urge them out though, he didn't know another way of improving the present circumstances. And that worried him. He hated losing control, not being able to take direct action, but instead having to wait and be acted upon. It reminded him of being a kid with no choice and no way out again – of what had happened with Buford – and broke him into a silent cold sweat.
He was going to stop these punks and get the rest of these innocent bystanders out of this safely. Derek Morgan didn't fail on his word, and he had promised himself long ago; he wouldn't be a victim again.
Drawing in a tight, steadying breath, he tried to force himself to think, to come up with a plan. And that was when he remembered the cell in his pocket. There was a general 911 to the rest of the team programmed into his contacts list. It had been JJ's idea, over a year ago, after they'd nearly lost Reid in Georgia, to have some way for one of them to contact the others if they got in trouble. Without having to dial, or even say anything once it was answered, it would show up on all of the others' phones as them and as a '911' and it could be traced and the team could actually call 911 and speak to the operator with whatever information they had.
Reaching very slowly and carefully into his jacket pocket once the crooks were distracted conferring with each other over what to do, he managed to flip his cell open without taking it out, and push the button he hoped sight unseen was the one to bring up his contacts. The number he needed was the first one on the list, and praying he'd gotten it, Morgan hit send.
It was only after he'd done it, and was releasing a tiny breath of relief that at least someone had been alerted and help would soon be on its way, that he realized he would have sent the distress call to Penelope as well. She was sitting right outside in the car, and would be closest and he knew her too well to think she'd just sit tight and wait for the cavalry. Penelope Garcia, much as he loved her, was too much like him for her own good. She would only think that he was in danger and come barreling in here to help – effectively putting herself in peril.
'Garcia, don't do it,' began to silently pray over and over in his mind. 'Just call the police and wait for some back-up.' But he knew it wouldn't do any good. He couldn't see out the front windows from back along the wall where he was cornered now, but he didn't need to see her to know with almost complete certainty that she would be getting out of the car and crossing the parking lot to see what had happened. She'd been so focused on helping him that she wouldn't even worry about the possibility of getting herself hurt too. He cursed under his breath, wishing he'd though before sending out the S.O.S. That was two ridiculously bad decisions he'd made in one night.
Eyes straying over to the door, all he could do was hope he wouldn't see what he was afraid of seeing any second now. She was walking right into this mess and it was his fault. He'd pretty much pulled her in, and now he had no way of warning her to go back. And just like that, right before his eyes, like a nightmare he couldn't stop, she appeared on the sidewalk right outside the store.
She reached for the door handle, and began to step in. He could see her through the glass, beautifully oblivious to what might happen to her, only wanting to make sure he was okay.
Morgan couldn't help himself, he took a step forward, wanting to push her back out to safety, to at least be between her and them. But just then the bells on the door clanged again, announcing her entrance to everyone. "Pen!" he barked out, voice hoarse with fear for her. "Get out of here!"
Her eyes immediately jerked up to meet his and took in the whole scene before her. Morgan knew one gun was now surely trained on her too, and he could see that she'd frozen; eyes wide, all the color draining from her suddenly terrified face.
And in the next second, he saw the motion from the corner of his eye, as the second gunman, the considerably more volatile one, turned as well, swinging around to put the woman Derek loved within the sights of his gun.
