This wasn't the normal morning meeting for the team of profilers. They weren't briefing a new case this morning. Instead, Hotch was busy taking care of administration issues within the team. Among those issues performance evaluations were due, and Hotch informed each of his team that he would be calling them into his office throughout the day to review the evaluation with them.

"Meanwhile, I expect each of you to be working on paperwork today while we have a break between cases," Hotch said, about ready to wrap up the staff meeting. He let his gaze fall on Morgan.

"What?" the dark-skinned profiler asked defensively.

"You're the furthest behind on paperwork," Hotch informed him.

"Even with slipping me files," Reid interjected quietly, earning him a glare from Morgan which the genius refused to acknowledge.

"I'm expecting to see you catch up quite a bit by the end of the day," Hotch said, as if Reid had never made his little comment. "If not you'll be putting in a late night even without a case. Strauss is getting on my case about the late paperwork. If requiring you to put in extra hours is what it takes to get caught up, then that's what is going to have to happen. That goes for everyone."

"Rossi is lucky to be at that seminar right about now," Morgan muttered.

"Ironically, besides Reid, Rossi is the only one that has managed to keep up on the paper work," the unit chief countered. "Does anyone have anything they would like to bring up?" Hotch asked, looking around the table at each of his subordinates. "Then this meeting is adjourned. I expect to see everyone hard at work at their desks throughout the day. Garcia, give me fifteen minutes and then I'd like to see you in my office to go over your evaluation."

"Yes, sir," the computer tech replied.

With that said, Hotch quickly gathered his things and headed out of room. Garcia soon followed leaving Reid, Morgan and Prentiss in the room who were a bit more slow to follow - none of them all that eager to get to the bullpen and the paperwork that waited for them at their desks.

"So what was that remark for, Kid?" Morgan asked as he watched the younger agent get to his feet. Morgan had to force himself to keep his gaze on Reid's face instead of letting it trail down his body to the genius' long legs that he loved to admire. "Are you mad for me bailing on you Friday night?"

Reid shrugged. "We went out together as a group and besides you're free to hang out with whomever you want to."

" How did you get home that night?" Morgan asked, the younger man having ridden to the bar with him. Morgan had looked for Reid before leaving the bar with Katie, wanting to make sure his friend had a way to get home but hadn't been able to find him.

"Oh, Reid went home with a blonde, too," Prentiss replied, before Reid had a chance to answer the question. The raven-haired profiler had already started toward the door.

Morgan felt a twinge of jealousy arise at the words. Part of him wanted to demand who it was Reid had left with, though he knew he had no right to do so. He had no claim on Reid or his time. Absolutely no right to try saying whom Reid could or could not spend time with. Still, part of him wished that it was him who had taken the young genius home that night. Wished that it had been Reid whom he shared the bed with during the night of lovemaking that had ensued instead of the blonde-headed, Katie.

He knew he couldn't say that though, especially not in the middle of the round-table room with Prentiss as an audience. He was quite sure the dark-haired agent would enjoy that little confession as well as never let him live the moment down. Somehow he didn't think Reid would find the confession all that amusing, especially giving the surroundings. He could almost see the younger agent's hazel eyes go wide in surprise at the words and what little color the kid ever had in his complexion drain. What the reaction after the initial surprise and probably embarrassment would be, Morgan wasn't sure. He knew what that reaction would be in his fantasies but one thing he had learned over the years was that Dr. Spencer Reid had a unique way of surprising him.

"A blonde, huh," Morgan replied instead, trying to keep the tone of his voice light and filled with amusement. "Maybe there is hope for you yet, Kid."

"Garcia gave me a ride home," Reid replied quickly, casting a baleful look in Prentiss' direction as she walked through the door.

"Oh, I could have so much fun with that statement," Morgan said, an evil grin coming to his face.

"What?" Reid said, his gaze switching to Morgan. As the younger profiler took in the older man's expression, Morgan's intent became clear to him. "That is not what I meant," Reid said quickly, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.

Morgan's grin grew even more. He knew the genius' statement had been quite innocuous but he had to admit he was enjoying Reid's discomfiture. "You know Garcia is a beautiful woman any man would . . ."

"Look, she drove me to my apartment building, dropped me off and left. She didn't even come upstairs."

"There's no need to have gone up to your apartment. Men have been getting laid in cars since before even I was born."

Reid's face flushed an even deeper shade of crimson. "Nothing happened. Besides there are rules and even if there weren't, I don't see Garcia in that way."

"Don't see me in what way?" Garcia asked, strolling casually back into the room. "I forgot my pen," she said pointing to the purple pen with a toucan on top of it.

"Nothing," Reid muttered as he hurriedly left the room.

Morgan watched the younger man head for the relative safety of his desk. Reid folded his lanky form into the chair, grabbed a folder and quickly opened it.

"Were you giving our sweet little G-man a hard time there, Sugar?" Garcia asked, walking over to the table to retrieve her pen.

"Just a bit of harmless fun," Morgan replied, taking a glance around to make sure none of his other teammates were finding their way back to the conference room. "I enjoy watching him blush."

"Somehow I don't thin that's the only thing you would enjoy making him do," Garcia replied, a mischievous lilt to her voice. She gave him a wink. "You really should just give up this whole pretense of being an alley cat out on the prowl and try catching the only mouse you really want."

"He would freak, Baby Girl."

Morgan glanced out the window at the bull pen. Both Prentiss and Reid were now at their desks, looking as if they were hard at work. As he watched, Reid reached up to tuck a stray strand of wavy hair behind his ear.

"You don't know that for sure. Besides, weren't you the one that told me that if something happened to Reid during that anthrax scare a couple weeks ago that your one regret would be not telling him exactly how you felt about him."

"Nothing happened to him, Baby Girl. He's fine," Morgan argued, even as he noted that Reid hadn't seemed to put back on the weight he had loss during the illness. What he hadn't told even the vivacious blonde was that he had confessed his love to Reid, while the young man had been lying near death in the hospital bed, as they waited to see if the cure would work. Reid had been so out of it that even with his eidetic memory he had no recollection of that confession and Morgan didn't plan on reminding him.

"For now," Garcia said. "Life is unpredictable and this job makes it even more so."

Morgan pulled his gaze away from the vision in the bullpen and looked at his other best friend. The one person in this world that knew about his attraction to men, especially one man in particular.

"I won't do that to him."

"How do you know he isn't secretly pinning away for you, too?"

"Do you know something I don't know?"

Garcia shook his head. "Nothing for sure, but it's just a feeling I've got. Also, he didn't seem to be all too happy that you were flirting with that blonde Friday night. He suddenly wanted to leave when you walked off into the crowd with him."

"Reid's never been much for crowded places."

"Yet, he seems to willingly go to those places if it means he's going to be with you," Garcia told him. Her pen now in hand, she walked up to him. "Think about that fact there, gorgeous," she told him, lightly tapping the plastic toucan against Morgan's chin.

With that, Garcia headed out of the conference room for a second time, leaving Morgan alone. The dark-skinned profiler let his gaze drift back down to the bullpen as he pondered Garcia's words. Was she right?

After a few minutes, Morgan let out a sigh. Unless Reid gave him some sign that he was interested, or even that he played for that team, then he knew he couldn't make a move. Knew that he couldn't take a chance of hurting the kid in that way, even unintentionally. Finally leaving the conference room himself, Morgan headed for his desk and the dreaded inbox that was waiting for him.

As Agent Prentiss walked past him, Agent Spencer Reid looked up from his paperwork and toward the Agent Hotchner's office. He could see Morgan clearly as the dark-skinned agent sat back in the chair across from their unit chief. Though he was trying to appear calm, Reid could read the tension in his friend's body language. Apparently the performance evaluation wasn't as good as Morgan would like, and Reid had a fairly good idea of at least one area that his friend had a low rating on.

Casting a glance around to make sure no one was watching, Reid got to his feet and took the few steps necessary to cross over to Morgan's desk. Quickly snatching a handful of the brown files from the top of the inbox, Reid retreated back to his own desk. Sitting back down in his chair, Reid placed the pile in front of him, hoping that by not putting them in his now empty inbox that he wouldn't draw attention to himself.

Despite his comment of Morgan slipping him files, Reid really didn't mind. Unlike his co-workers, he didn't find completely the necessary reports and forms to be tedious.

~Although I would much prefer that he slipped me his tongue instead of files, ~ Reid thought, going back to the last set of forms that he needed to complete for their last case. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks at the thought.

"Are you okay?"

Reid jumped at the sound of Prentiss' voice. "Yeah, fine. Why?" he replied looking up front the paperwork as his co-worker slid into her seat across from him.

"Your cheeks look a little flushed, like you're running a fever or something."

~Oh I'm running a fever all right, but it isn't because I'm sick, ~ Reid thought. "I'm fine," was all he said out loud though. He reached out and picked up his coffee mug, taking a sip of the now cool liquid.

"Looks like you're running on empty there," Prentiss said, having noticed the wire basket void of files on her way past. "You could always poach Morgan's inbox. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

Reid finally found himself choking on the coffee, his mind going in a whole different direction than Prentiss had intended.

"You okay, Reid."

"Yeah, fine," Reid managed between a few coughs having managed to swallow the liquid without spitting it out.

Reid was thankful when his cell phone rang. Reaching for it quickly, he answered it without bothering to look at the screen, which turned out to be a mistake.

"Agent Spencer Reid."

"Spencer, man, it's about time I got a hold of you. A person might start to think you've been avoiding his calls."

Reid cursed himself silently at the sound of Ethan's voice. He had been avoiding his old friend's calls for the past three weeks due to knowing what it was Ethan was calling about.

"I've been busy," Reid replied, not about to admit anything to his friend.

"Well, now that I've got a hold of you, what have you decided about the reunion man. It'll be a good chance for the two of us to catch up again. I haven't seen you since you were down in New Orleans on that case."

"I don't think I'm gonna go."

"Come on, Spencer. You can't bail on me. It's our fifteen-year reunion. Don't you want to go back to Vegas and see what our old classmates are up to?"

"Not particularly."

"Why not? Don't you want to show everyone what that geeky twelve-year-old managed to accomplish with his life?" Ethan said, as Reid watched Morgan walk down the steps into the bullpen and sit down at his desk. "Youngest FBI ever who is part of one of the elite profiling teams - you've got a lot to be proud of. Me on the other hand - an FBI Academy dropout turned piano player in a bar, however, it'll be good to see what others have done. I can't be the only loser out of our graduating class, right?"

"You're not a loser, Ethan."

"Then you won't be ashamed to be seen with me at our reunion."

"Of course I wouldn't be."

"Then you're going?"

"What? No, I never said that."

"Yes, you did. You just said that you wouldn't be ashamed to be seen with me at our reunion."

"That didn't mean I agreed to go."

"Come on, Spencer. You're the only one I've kept in touch with from our graduating class. I want to go, but I'd like to know there is at least one person to talk to there."

"Ethan . . ."

"Think about it, Spencer. You've got until tomorrow to RSVP."

"Fine, I'll think about it," Reid replied more to get Ethan off his back than actually intending to reconsider his position on the high school reunion.

"Okay. I'll talk to you tomorrow then."

Reid sighed as he ended the phone call.

"So, what are you going to be thinking about?" Morgan asked, casually. Reid's side of the conversation had caught his attention.

"Fifteen-year high school reunion. Ethan wants me to go."

"You should."

"Like you've gone to your high school reunions."

"Actually, I have. It was actually kind of fun. You get to relive a few memories, see what old classmates made of themselves and who married who," Morgan shrugged. "You could end up enjoying yourself, and at the very least you get a chance to catch up with Ethan again."

"Recalling my high school days isn't exactly high on my list of things I want to do, Morgan," Reid said, wondering if his friend even remembered the memory he had shared with him on that case down in Texas.

"All the more reason to go back, Kid. Show those guys exactly what you've managed to accomplish with your life. You've got a lot to be proud of."

Reid ducked his head, not wanting Morgan to see his blush at the words of praise.

"I know you've got vacation time, Kid, as you never go anywhere. It'll be good for you to get away from all of this for a few days. Maybe stop by and see your mother again. You haven't been out there for almost six months now."

"You're as bad as Ethan," Reid muttered getting to his feet. He closed the file that was open and headed in the direction of the elevator.

"Where are you going?" Morgan asked.

"Lunch. Are either of you coming?" Reid asked, not breaking his stride, as he glanced quickly over his shoulder at his two co-workers.

Both Prentiss and Morgan were getting to their feet, more than happy to leave the paperwork behind for an hour.