Morgan was sitting at his desk, bombarding Reid's phone with questions, when he saw J.J walk over to Prentiss' desk. He sighed as he realised what they were talking about. Whenever J.J had that expression, the serious yet sad one, everyone knew that they were about to be sent on a case.
As Morgan stood up to make his way to the conference room, J.J glanced his way. She knew she didn't have to tell him that they had a case, so she shot him a half-hearted smile and made her own way to the round table, following closely behind a slouched Emily. As Morgan entered the conference room and dropped into a chair, his mind drifted back to Reid. None of them had seen him since yesterday, when he had made his surprising swift exit. They all expected him to come in later in the day, or at least this morning, but he hadn't shown up and Morgan could tell that the team were worried. He on the other hand, was going crazy with worry. Reid was his best friend, and yes, lately his best friend had been more distant towards him, but Morgan still loved him like a brother. Even if Reid wouldn't tell them what was going on. When Reid hadn't been here this morning when Morgan entered the bullpen, he seriously thought about turning around and going to Reid's apartment. He stopped himself though. He may have been texting him non-stop, but he knew that trying to get Reid to talk to him, or anyone, face to face was a bad idea.
Hotch walked into the room, and Morgan was forced to pay attention to the images that had just appeared on the large screen. The body of a young woman around the age of 25 had been found in Texas, along with three others between the ages of 20 and 40. The bodies had been found with deep lacerations to the chest and stab wounds to the lower abdomen. The only thing women had in common was that none of them were reported missing. As J.J finished describing the case, Morgan sighed, lifted his arms behind his head and leaned back in his seat. This is gonna be a long day.
Reid was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had crawled into bed at 2 in them morning, and it was now 9. He had gotten 6 hours of sleep, not counting the hour that he had staring at the ceiling. He wanted to move. To get up and face his problems head on, but he couldn't. If he got up, he would have to pack his bag. He would have to go to the airport and book a ticket to New York, but he couldn't. New York just brought up memories that he really couldn't handle. For the past hour, he had been blocking out the memory of his latest phone call with jess, but it was no use. He couldn't block it anymore without also remembering the danger that she was in.
He closed his eyes, sighed, and threw the covers off of himself. As his feet touched the floor, he felt the broken glass, which fortunately had not pierced his skin. Images of last night popped into his head, and he remembered throwing his bedside lamp onto the floor in a final fit of rage. It was the last thing that he had broken before falling into his bed. Carefully, he pushed the china to the side with his foot, and stood up, before making his way to the kitchen. He couldn't bring himself to brush his teeth let alone take a shower, but before he was half way to the kitchen, he saw the blood that was dried onto his arms. Along with the blood, there were a couple of gashes, which were thankfully not deep enough to force him to take a trip to the E.R. There was no way he could cope with a trip to the hospital. Deciding to just wash off in the kitchen sink, he continued walking, bracing himself for the sight of his living room. He stepped through the door way, and immediately saw masses of broken plates, bowls, and the whole contents of his shelves. There were books with pages torn from them, some with covers ripped off, and even some that went from being 200 pages, to 2 pages. Just as he thought he was going to cry at the sight of his dismantled books, he spotted his credentials lying on the floor next to the overturned coffee table. He walked over and reached down to pick them up. The sight made him feel sick, and now that they were in his hands, he felt the bile rise in his throat.
Only just managing to relax and stop himself from blowing chunks over his destroyed apartment, he took another look at his ruined F.B.I identification. The leather holder that his I.D was in looked like it had been half shredded by a pair of scissors. As he opened the destroyed leather holder, he sighed and shut his eyes for the second time in the space of an hour. What was his life coming to? His I.D card was ripped in half, and splattered with blood. He had obviously taken the time to put the I.D back into the leather holder, which confused him. He didn't remember why he did it, obviously because he was in such a rage that he didn't think before he did it. How was he going to explain this to Hotch? Oh well. He had to figure out how to help jess before he went anywhere near that place. He dropped the credentials and headed off to clean his arms, and cover up the gashes before they got infected.
After cleaning himself up, he began to think. He had to find Jessica before it was too late. He had to or he would never forgive himself, and the only way to find her was to get onto a plane and go to New York. Everything inside him screamed danger, even though he knew that nothing could happen to him again. The odds were against it. He had to go. Not only because of Jessica, but because if he didn't, he would have to back to work and he really didn't want to see or even talk to his team. Besides, his credentials were ruined to he couldn't go in even if he wanted to. Cursing himself for being such a baby, he absent mindly pushed the end call button on his phone, which had been buzzing constantly for the past 2 minutes.
He made his decision, and two hours later found himself at the airport, with a flight scheduled for 11, with his suitcase and a phone full of texts from Morgan, which over the past few hours had been joined by texts from J.J, Prentiss, Garcia and even Hotch. Thankfully the world class interrogator, David Rossi, had not been plastering him with texts, and had gotten the message after Reid had hung up a call from him without even answering. Sometimes he wondered why his team were still bothering with him.
The car journey to the airport was quiet for Morgan and Hotch, until Morgan couldn't take it anymore. He pulled out his gun, which was tucked into a gun holster at his waist, and raised it quickly to his head. Hotch looked round, his eyes widening at what he saw, and began to speak. "Morgan! What do you think you're doing?" He glanced towards the road to make sure he wasn't about to crash, and when he turned back to Morgan, his face was calm and relaxed. "It's all your fault. You made Reid leave. You should have been there for him. He's probably dead. You've killed him!" All the time Hotch had been speaking, Morgan had been waiting, looking at Hotch and waiting for the right moment, but before he could take the opportunity, he heard a thud, and the glass on the front of the S.U.V smashed and cracked. Hutch stopped the car, and got out to take a look at what he had hit, with Morgan following close behind, still clutching his gun. What Morgan saw at the foot of the car, made him scream out in disbelief and grief. Covered in blood, and being pulled onto his back by Hotch, was Reid. There was a pool of blood underneath his head and his arm was bent out at an odd angle. Morgan continued to scream, but now he felt like there was something restraining him, pulling him back.
His eyes snapped open, and the first thing he saw, was Hotches face. His arms were pinned to his side, and Hotch was keeping his legs from kicking him by leaning heavily on them with one knee. His face was plastered with concern and confusion, as he looked at the man whom he was restraining. It was then that Morgan realised that he had been screaming out loud. It was just a dream. Oh thank god thank god thank god! He let out a long breath as his head dropped to his chest.
" you good?" he heard Hotch ask, and when Morgan answered with a nod, Hotch began to let go of him and settle back into the driver's seat of the S.U.V. he had pulled over onto the hard shoulder, obviously to stop a screaming Morgan from kicking him in the face. "You fell asleep" Hotch stated. He wasn't starting the car, he was just sitting there looking at Morgan, who was trying his best to disappear. When Morgan didn't explain what his dream had been about, Hotch spoke again. "Reid?" Morgan glanced towards him, trying to mask the confusion at that question. Hotch smiled gently. "You were screaming Reid's name". Morgan looked down.
"Morgan, I understand that you're worried about Reid, we all are, but he's a grown man. He can take care of himself. That being said, I do think we should find him and let him know that he always has someone to talk to, so when we get back from this case, we will talk to him." Another smile. "Besides, I think everyone of the team had tried to get in contact with him already".
"Even you?" Morgan was grinning now.
"Even me" Hotch said, with a shamed look on his face. He started the engine, and continued to the airport, where the team were probably waiting for them.
"What time do we take off?" Morgan asked, making sure his gun and credentials were with him as they stepped out of the S.U.V.
"Ten past eleven. Don't ask me why we can't just go at eleven. I don't know." Hotch replied, as they made their way towards the team, who were waiting in a group beside their vehicles, and looking their way.
"Finally!" Emily called, grinning.