Playing Games by JuliaBC

Tag to 11x16: Derek.

She wasn't there.

She couldn't be there.

She wondered if they'd told Alex Blake about Derek's current predicament. She wondered if Emily Prentiss, across an ocean, knew.

Here in DC, Kate was the closest to the team, to Derek.

But somehow, she felt closed out.

She wasn't calling or texting. She was smarter than that. The last thing they needed right now was interruptions. So all she could do was wait. The biggest thing was, she wanted to do more than that. She wanted in on the chase, and the search, and finding her friend. He'd been so good to her. From the beginning, he'd encouraged her and been more than friendly to her.

As the night wore on, she held her phone in her hands. She wondered if anyone on the team would think to text her should the worst possible outcome happen.

Spencer Reid couldn't stop the constant flow of information in his brain. It was divided, not as neatly as he would have liked, into possible outcomes, probably outcomes, memories of Derek, and the throbbing reminder that if they didn't find him soon, all was lost. He'd be dead.

Derek Morgan...would be dead.

He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to force the image from his brain...the image of a man no longer breathing. The image of one his best friends in the whole world...no longer alive. No longer part of this world.

He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them wide. His mind was too scary a place to be in right now. He didn't want to be able to think right now. He wanted to dismiss all unnecessary panicking and force himself to evaluate things more clearly.

The game was on. The game was afoot.

Oh, god, not Sherlock Holmes. No, he couldn't do this right now. He couldn't be Joseph Bell again. He would not let himself be the man who got there too late. Not again.

Reid's mind was racing as he entered the cabin, as the events played out. The gun shot was fatal, and he was finally able to see his friend properly, see what was happening, what was wrong.

Derek was safe.

But he wasn't in the clear. That was immediately, painfully apparent as he realized that Derek was having trouble breathing, concentrating.

His heart was in his throat as he held onto Derek's hand, holding tight.

He couldn't lose him.

The fact of the matter was...

He'd saved Derek Morgan's life tonight.

The news had finally come back. After the waiting in the ambulance, holding onto Morgan as he flatlined, sitting in a hospital (yes, he agreed with Kate, nothing good happened in hospitals, he hated them) then the doctors had come back from surgery.

"He's going to make it."

Reid felt his heart begin to beat again. Next to him, JJ was crying into Rossi's arms, finally overwhelmed, finally done with holding it in. He compared this to another near miss, to Emily, and the sight of JJ crying healed an old hole in his heart. She had finally stopped hiding behind a wall. Thank god.

Garcia was crying too, but silently, as though she didn't even realize it. She was mouthing words that Reid couldn't quite catch, and as she caught his gaze, she started to smile.

"Reid, come here," she whispered, reaching for his hand. "They won't let us in yet, so come here."

He took her hand, ignoring all statistics about germs for once, pretending that she hadn't just wiped her tears away.

"You saved him," she said hoarsely.

"The doctors saved him, Penelope," he said honestly. "You saved him with your computer work. He saved himself by knowing what to do."

"You shot the guy who was about to kill him," Garcia replied. "You have the most immediate degree of savior."

He almost smiled, finding humor in Garcia as he always could. "At least now I can brag about it, right?" He said quietly.

Garcia started to laugh. "Oh, you should. Once he's better, of course. It'd serve him right. He's such a bastard...when he wants to be." Her tears suddenly started again, and she pulled her hand away to fetch a handkerchief. "Oh, god, Reid, remember when he gave us panic attacks over that physical test? And we were waiting for our instructor and it was him?" She shook her head. "What if he'd never been able to do that again?"

She took a few deep inhales. "But I can. I mean, he can."

She got up, beginning to pace. "I wonder when we can see him," she said. "You know, I texted Alex and Em and Kate about it when you guys told Hotch that he was in the ambulance, but shouldn't something better than a text be sent now? Or maybe he's not actually stable yet...oh god."

He arrived at her house, looking ruffled and exhausted. There were huge circles underneath his eyes and he was wearing the same clothes as when he'd left her house three nights ago.

"We have him," he said simply, sinking down on the steps, unable to even make it inside the door. "He's stable."

Poe was approaching his master, a bit more quietly, as though sensing his mood. Reid pulled the dog close, burying his face in Poe's furry neck.

"Why no victory dance?" Kate wondered, sinking down next to him.

Reid didn't look at her; he pulled Poe closer. "How can any of us truly celebrate when we aren't any closer to finding out who took him? And why?" He grew quiet, Kate was about to speak when he spoke again. "Why, Kate? What's with this team, that we have this unending march of attacks on us? Why the BAU? In terms of the FBI, we're not that powerful. We don't make the decisions."

"Yeah, but you're often the ones who close the most cases," Kate said. "In Andi's unit, everyone envied the BAU. Your success rate is almost 100%, you work with the smartest people, you get admired and noticed for what you do. And you make a difference."

"So did you guys," Reid said. "And wasn't your success rate before the BAU pretty high up there too?"

Kate shrugged. "It's a different kind of success," she said. "I catch the bad guys. You guys catch them too, but you also had a bigger chance of helping victims. I...cleaned up. I can count on one hand the number of victims I talked to face to face before coming to the BAU."

"So what are you saying? People are jealous of the BAU?" Reid wondered.

She shook her head. "I'm not actually sure what I'm saying, Spencer. Maybe I was trying to reassure you in your career path but that's not what you were looking for."

"Not really," he admitted heavily.

"How'd you get him back?" She asked, a long moment later.

"We barely did," Reid said. "He was so far gone. He couldn't even...he had to cover open wounds with bleach, Kate."

She flinched away from the image.

"He was being tortured, and somehow he got the upper hand, but he was on death's door," Reid continued unmercifully. "The look on his face when I walked through that door...I don't want that memory. I don't want the memory of being the one to shoot his attacker down. I don't want the memory of holding his hand as he was taken to the ambulance. I don't want the memory of him being taken. Because, Kate?"

She nodded, trying to absorb his words.

"I'm not sure we're going to get him back."

She froze. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I don't know," Reid said. "All I have is this feeling, the memory of how he looked at us when he woke up. I don't know if...if he's up for this anymore. I hate it when things change. I hate it when everything comes full circle and we're just broken again. No turning back."

"You're not broken, Spencer," she said, voice shaking. "Neither is the team. Hotch is not about to let any of you slip between his fingers. He didn't let me, and I was as new as can be back then."

"What are you talking about?" Reid asked.

"The plane case," she said. "You know the one. It hit me hard. You told me about...about Maeve. And your mom."

"What did Hotch do?" Reid pressed.

"He told me to hold on," she said. "Keep holding on. We all had scars. He said something about how a person who didn't have scars hadn't lived."

Reid lifted his head. "Hotch said that? Really?"

Kate shrugged, tilting her head. "I think it was a quote."

"From who?" It was obvious that Reid's mind had started to work double time, sorting out who hadn't said it.

"Someone he used to know," she said vaguely.

"He didn't say who?" Reid wondered.

"No," she protested. "Why the interest?"

"It doesn't sound like something Hotch would have said," Reid finished. "He doesn't like looking back."

"No, he doesn't," Kate said, looked at her hands, and then up at Reid. "Do all of you have physical scars at this point?"

Reid breathed out. "Yes. I'd catalog them, but they're things that should be said by the one with the scar."

"That's definitely true," Kate said. "Can I...do you think he's open to having visitors?"

"Of course," Reid said, crinkling his brow. "But maybe you should check with Hotch."

"It's just...I know that Meg would love to see him again, maybe Chris too," Kate hedged.

"And you wouldn't?" Reid managed to tease.

Kate shoved him. "No, I mean that maybe Hotch might let me in, but would he let the others in?"

"You know, Kate," Reid said, standing up. "Maybe you should ask Hotch."

His eyes were lighter as he said it, showing a small amount of amusement.

"You're going home now, right?" Kate asked, standing with him.

"I might end up at a coffee shop, going for one more shot of caffeine to keep my brain going long enough to figure this out..." Reid began.

"Don't do that," Kate said immediately.

"I won't," he admitted. "But I want to. I just feel like if I go far enough everything will fall into place."

"It will," Kate promised. "I swear but not like this. Get some sleep, Spencer. Please."

He grinned at her. "You're so authoritative sometimes."

"No, I'm not," she said.

The sideways glance he gave her was answer enough.

A/N: Rossi: Shrapnel in the arm

Hotch: Scars from being stabbed by Foyet

Garcia: Scar(s) from being shot

JJ: Burn wounds from Askari

Reid: various scars from being shot (leg, neck)

Morgan: Various scars from being shot; new wounds from being tortured, scars from being shoved through a window

Tara: Who knows, really? Does being tazed leave scars?

Kate: scars on right arm from Parkett/left arm from when someone 'got through the tendon' (though that scar was supposedly completely healed by cocoa butter)

Prentiss: the clover/other assorted wounds

Blake: ...hmm. I can't think of any but she's got to have them.

I know that I'm probably missing some. Please let me know what they'd be.

Okay, so this didn't have a game but I wanted to get it out before the episode tonight airs. Derek was so hard to write for! I just kind of lost it yesterday trying to figure out an angle.

So I pinky swear (and I'll probably break my pinky swear) to have something up someday with Kate going to visit Derek. A game will be played. Or two.