Chapter 29
BAU Headquarters
Quantico, VA
Morgan
"I'm confused." Spencer said. "First she was going to a safe house and I was staying in the Academy dorm, now we're going together. What's going on?"
Morgan sighed. "Look, kid...I screwed up."
"What happened?"
"You know, I think of you as the little brother I never had, all right? And sometimes...okay, I was playing around, I was goofing, I was..."
Just like that the genius got it. "You were making fun of me?"
Okay, now Morgan felt like a heel. "Yeah, all right. And I'm sorry; it was...not right of me. I apologize."
Okay, it had been stupid, but why did the kid look so hurt? "We're you doing that back in Madrone County?" Spencer asked.
Morgan opened his mouth, but then he stopped for a minute. Had he? They'd been having such a hard time trying to figure out what was not right with the department there and he was trying to get them to open up... "I don't have your memory. Maybe, I don't..."
"They told me you were glad I was gone. They said you were relieved to be rid of me."
"You know that's not true."
"I know. That's not the point. The point is that you gave them ammunition to use against me. You showed an Unsub my weaknesses so he could better attack me."
"I didn't think other cops could be the Unsub."
"Why not? We've dealt with dirty cops before. You know you can't trust anyone in the field, not completely. We were even saying something wasn't right."
Why was the kid picking on this? Why didn't he just accept his apology? "I was trying to get them to like me, all right?"
But the kid was not letting it go. "At my expense."
Damn it. "Look, I know you can take it..."
"Can I?"
Fuck. Morgan sighed. "I'm sorry. I screwed up."
"Yeah, you did. And if I know it then you can be sure Alice has already figured that out. We've worked together for over ten years now, I know you have self-esteem issues."
What? "I don't..."
"But she doesn't know you at all. How can she trust you, or anyone on this team, to protect us if you're handing over intel to the Unsubs just to get a laugh?"
"I didn't..."
"While getting other cops to like and accept you might be your subconscious priority Alice is the only witness that can pin each of the murders directly on Schrader. If we lose her the entire case might fall apart. Since she no longer trusts you or likely the rest of the team protecting her just became considerably more difficult. And since I'm not yet cleared to carry I can only be of so much help here."
"You can convince her to go through with the original plan."
Spencer looked at him for a long moment. "Actually at present I feel a lot safer with her around." He turned to walk away.
Damn it. "I said I was sorry."
Spencer stopped and turned back. "A true apology consists of four parts, saying what you did wrong, saying why it was wrong, explaining how you plan to correct yourself in the future, and only then asking for forgiveness. You might want to practice that."
Morgan watched him walk away.
Son of a bitch.
Rossi
"I could send them both to the Academy dorms." Hotch said.
"I wouldn't." Dave replied as he followed his friend into his office. "Morgan already got us on the wrong side here, we don't want to make this worse or we'll lose control of the situation entirely."
"And that would make it worse?"
"Yes." Now how could he explain this to his oh-so-vanilla friend? "If it helps think of it as a different culture."
"Reid's not from that culture."
"No, but your witness is. You're going to have to make some accommodations to ensure her cooperation. In this case that does involve Reid."
"How so?"
"She's a civilian. She doesn't understand the physical threat like we do. Her focus is on his emotional safety, making sure he's not psychologically harmed again."
"And she doesn't think we can protect him from that?"
"Not anymore, thanks to Morgan. At the moment I could likely say anything to her I wanted, delivered any insult, offered any threat and she would just take it in stride. If I looked at Reid cross-eyed she'd be out of here like a shot, likely dragging him with her as she went."
"He wouldn't go."
"I'm not a hundred percent about that, and that's what concerns me. So our best bet is to let her keep protecting him emotionally, to respect that relationship, while we protect both of them physically. And a room with two single beds divided by a partition is not the way to do that. To a woman of that culture, in that frame of mind, you're saying you don't support that relationship. And since you don't know her from Adam she knows her feelings don't matter here but it does mean his feelings on the subject don't matter."
"That he doesn't matter."
"Yes. Morgan making fun of him behind his back already illustrated that for her. That is a problem for her."
"I need to talk to him about that."
"Yes, and you might include JJ when she gets back as well."
"We do have a bad habit of not looking after each other's emotional health the way we should."
"We do. It's something we need to work on as a team." All of a sudden Dave had an idea. "I think I can simplify this."
"Please."
"In that culture that kind of commitment can be stronger than most marriages, how would you house a married couple in this situation?"
Hotch looked floored for a moment. "I never thought of Reid as married."
"He likely will be someday, if not her than someone else. I think this whole unit needs a bit of adjustment. In the meantime talk to the protective custody team, see what they do for a married couple. Make Morgan sleep on the couch as penance."
Hotch reached for the phone. "Think it will be comfortable enough for her?"
"At the moment I doubt she cares. She just wants to be there when he starts having nightmares."
"How are you so sure about all this?"
Dave smiled. "Do you really want the answer to that?"
"Likely not." Hotch replied. "But tell me anyway."
"If he was mine that's what I would want. I wouldn't give a damn what you did to me but if you got in the way of me looking after mine by making us sleep in separate beds I would be royally pissed."
"You're right. I didn't want to know."
.
Sorry about the slow posting. Thanksgiving.