Damn it, Reid!
He was a big brother. It was the role that had defined him from childhood on up. He was the one who protected, the one who shielded, the one who took the blast so that the people he loved the most wouldn't be hurt.
And because of one moment of distraction, he'd let the young man he thought of as closer than family get into a situation from which he wasn't likely to escape. Reid.
Damn it, why'd you have to go in there alone, huh? We're a team, we're supposed to go in together. Any danger, you and me. So that I can protect you if I need to.
Not that he could have done much this time. Muscles don't protect against microorganisms.
I should still be in there with him.
He felt like swearing, like breaking down the door and yanking Reid out of that biological terror trap. It made him sick to think that Reid was in there, taking more spores in with every, single, fear-deep breath. He was already infected, but wasn't there sense in making sure that whatever microbes he had in him stayed lonely and didn't get reinforcements from the outside?
It was only his deep respect for Hotch that kept him from disregarding the rules and breaking in to be with Reid. His little brother shouldn't have to be alone. Not if this was his last few hours left on earth.
Morgan thrust the thought away, but the image of Reid's face and the suppressed terror in his eyes, just inches and yet a whole world away, on the other side of a glass barrier, was going to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.