This couldn't be happening.

That's all Morgan could think as he paced through his apartment, too troubled to heed Clooney any attention. He knew that they were all grieving, knew that they were all in so much pain, and he knew more than anyone what that pain was like. He had been there in Emily's near-to-final moments, had been there to hear her last words, had been there to hold her and beg her to hold on.

But she hadn't.

She had slipped away.

He had let her go .

No. No, thinking like that was illogical. That was what Reid would tell him, spouting some statistics about how mourning affected one's reasoning and how it did no use moping around and placing blame.

Reid. Oh, god, Reid. He had gone through so damn much, from his dad leaving him to his mom's condition deteriorating to Tobias Hankel and now this. Now, Emily was gone and he had relapsed and all of this was so wrong he felt sick.

He tried to sit down, tried to calm himself, but his skin felt like it was buzzing and he itched to go out and do something. He couldn't just stay at his house, couldn't just spent the day like some normal time off, because it wasn't and everything was wrong and he needed to get to Reid, needed to help him, because maybe then it would set his mind off of everything and put him at ease.

That's how he ended up pulling up at Hotch's home, how he ended up approaching the door. For a second, he hesitated. For a second, he paused, wondering whether he could do this or not, wondering if he had the strength left to help somebody else. He was so tired and he was tempted to turn back, to go back home, but his doubts were interrupted by a guttural scream from within the home.

Immediately, he was at the door. To his surprise, it was unlocked, swinging open with ease. Two muffled voices-presumably behind one of the closed doors-could be heard, one shrieking and screaming and the other shouting and yelling.

He hurried inside, finding the voice becoming progressively clearer as he approached. That horrible shrieking, the kind of screaming that was born out of absolute agony or utter fear, was so loud and so obviously belonged to Reid. The shouting, the type of mild panic and exhaustion, came from Hotch.

"Reid? Hotch?" he called out as he stopped before the door. "It's me, Morgan."

" Fuck off! Get away! "

" Calm down. You need to calm down and let me help you- "

" Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. "

" I can't do that-I need to help you, Reid. As your boss and your friend, I have to. "

"Bullshit! "

Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and Morgan didn't hesitate to force fling open that door. The sight before him was so strange, so disturbing, he couldn't really believe it was true. Both Hotch and Reid were known as the most professional and kept together of the team, each refusing to abandon formality or expose their emotions.

That's why he couldn't believe his own eyes as he took in the sight before him.

Everything was a mess. Furniture was askew, desk and chair from the corner flipped over and miniature bookshelf practically dismantled. Novels of all kinds—mostly children's books that Jack had probably relished—were scattered throughout the room, each torn and abused.

Hotch was standing at the bed, voice fatigued yet firm. Morgan almost had to do a double take, the man looking so much worse than he had just yesterday. The man's suit was wrinkled, his eyes exhausted, and his entire being just so, so tired. He appeared strikingly similar to when he did on a long flight back home after an even longer case.

But only when Morgan's eyes drifted towards the bed itself did his stomach drop.

It was Reid. It was Reid but it wasn't Reid, wasn't him because this couldn't be possible, wasn't him because he had been fine just a couple weeks ago, wasn't him because he would have never gotten this bad without reaching out to his friends, to his family .

But it was him. It was him, curled up into himself with eyes wide with desperation and unrecognizable fear. It was him, screaming and shouting and cringing away from the two men before him like one of the unsubs they hunted down. It was him, red dots decorating his elbow with the precision and utter despair akin to a sculptor's last statue, something similar to an artist's last mosaic.

But it hadn't been his final move, his message of farewell, and this fact, this information, was obviously the thing hurting him the most. The knowledge that he was still there, still alive, still subjected to the horrors of his life, was most likely the most frustrating of all.

Morgan couldn't say he understood exactly. He couldn't say that he understood everything, couldn't claim that he entirely knew what was going on, but on some level he was aware. He was aware because he felt the same, he was aware because with every waking moment he thought that it should have been him, that he should have been there to protect Emily, that he should have been able to hunt them down and fight off Doyle himself.

He should have been the one.

He should have been the one to die.

And so, he understood Reid, on some level, in some sense. And so, he urged Hotch out of the room, urged the man to go get himself a cup of coffee and maybe a couple hours of sleep. And so, he sat down beside the doctor and he began to talk.

"I've missed you." It sounded sort of pathetic and maybe too simple for such a complicated situation, too simple for such an equation with so many parts, but he was trying. Reid was, too, having quieted down, eyeing Morgan almost uneasily. "I'm…I'm sorry, that I haven't been here for you. I'm sorry that you've been dealing with this alone."

"Were you with her?" His voice was dry and ragged from screaming.

Derek leaned his head against the wall, sighing an impossible sigh. "Yeah. Yeah, I was."

"Tell me."

God, he didn't want to. He didn't want to vocalize the same moments that had been playing in his head nonstop, didn't want to describe the way she had stared up at him with wide eyes, didn't want to envision the way she had trembled beneath his hands. But he had to. He had to because it was for Spencer. He had to because it was for his best friend, his brother.

"She, uh, was taken. By Doyle. We tracked them down to a warehouse but we were too late." He swallowed thickly, nearly overwhelmed with flashes of the scene. "I opened the door and there she was. There was this wooden shaft that he had…he had stabbed her with, and she was looking up at me but not really seeing me.

"She told me to…to let her go. I begged her to stay and she squeezed my hand and I thought that maybe there was a chance, a possibility that she would make it out of this and we would all be together again.

"And then we're all waiting in that ER room. We're all waiting and there's this cloud, y'know? This cloud of just grief and hope and sadness and when I called you, I think we all knew what was going to happen. I think we all knew that this was going to be the end."

He looked up at Reid, trying to see a reaction, trying to see something that would maybe make this better. But the genius just stared straight ahead, gaze clouded over with that familiar haze from the hospital.

Morgan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Open and close. Open and close. Eventually, he managed to say, "I know I don't get what you're going through. I-I can't, really, and I'm sorry for that. But please Spencer, make this easier to understand." Say something. Be you again. Talk about statistics of model airplanes from the Bahamas or facts about the founder of modern dishwashers. Say something.

The doctor turned his head away, refusing to look at Morgan.

"Please, kid. I need to understand you, I need to help-"

"I don't need your help."

He blinked, startled both by a response at all and the response itself. "That may be true at the moment, but you need somebody to get through this. I know that Hotch may be too close or personal, but you can talk to me and I need you to understand that. Do you?"

"I don't need your help."

Without thinking, he grabbed the doctor's arm, tugging desperately because he needed to see those eyes, needed to look at his face and see something he could latch onto, something he could recognize. He immediately knew this was a mistake when the younger agent flinched, jerking away from the touch as if it burned.

"Shit, I'm sorry, kid, I didn't mean to-"

"Get out."

"What?"

"I said get out! " he was yelling now, far more deranged than Morgan had ever seen him. "Get out, get out, get out. Go away."

"Reid, I can't just leave-"

"Yes you can and I need you to," the kid's face was twisted with pain and fear and it was so clear he needed help, so clear that he needed somebody there for him. "Go away. Leave- please ."

He didn't want to.

He didn't want to because he needed to be here, needed to save someone, needed to have a purpose.

He didn't want to because in truth, he needed somebody more than ever and maybe, just maybe, he and Spencer could depend on each other.

He didn't want to because he was trying to save his friend, his brother, his everything, and he couldn't just get up and abandon it all.

" Go ."

He rose to his feet and left, shutting the door behind him.

He stopped just outside, closing his eyes and forcing himself to inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It was the same pattern he had learned throughout the years, the same pattern that had kept him calm and organized even as everybody else was in disarray. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

The house was empty. Hotch was probably upstairs, getting himself collected.

He should go back home. He should return to the memories and the grieving and the mourning and the regret, the regret that he hadn't been there for her, the regret that he had let her go even though he had promised he wouldn't.

The sound of crying could be heard from inside the room. He wanted to go in, wanted to comfort the fellow agent and tell him that it was going to be okay and they were going to be okay, that they would heal. He wanted to go in and become the hero, the savior, because maybe then he could forget even if it was just for a few minutes.

But he couldn't.

He headed out the door, stepping outside.