Chapter Text
From the day that Ava was born, Morgan knew that her life was no longer her own, she had made a promise at the very beginning of her motherhood to protect her daughter no matter the cost; when Elliot was born, she had simply doubled down on that idea and by the time she had Chloe, she was very much settled into the habit of doing everything to keep them safe. Knowing that the stakes were raised once she started working with the LAPD, Morgan was very much aware of her need to make sure that she stayed out of danger to the best of her abilities, for the sake of her children, but every once in a while, things didn't go her way and she found herself in a situation that was less than ideal. Yet, it wasn't something that she couldn't take care of. Especially when it came to her fourth child.
"Whatever happens, we're going to be okay baby." Morgan whispered softly.
She was sitting down on a ratty old sofa that had seen better days, but she needed to kick off her heels and focus on her breathing, choosing to ignore the door through which he had brought her before locking it behind him.
"At least there's no cameras or bugs here." She had done a full sweep when she'd been left alone, checking every nook and cranny to see if Matthew Clark would have hidden a microphone or a camera to keep an eye on her and listen in, but luckily there was nothing.
There was no way that Morgan was going to let them know about her baby. She felt perfectly fine in the moment, her morning sickness hadn't fully kicked in just yet, and even if it would take Nick time to find her - she knew he was already doing everything he could - in the meantime, she could hold her own. Suddenly, the door to this abandoned warehouse office she'd been so ungraciously dragged to and left behind for god knows how long, banged open.
"Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman who's been kidnapped by two psychopaths." Morgan thought as she braced herself for this conversation; she stood up and squared her shoulders.
She had been calmly untying the ribbons from her hair and fastening them together, but doing it very casually, as if she was bored out of her mind and chose to spend it fidgeting rather than yelling at the locked door.
"Morgan." The voice that had said her name when the lights had plunged the ballroom into darkness now spoke again.
"Hello Roman." Morgan turned to face her ex, crossing her arms over her chest. "Where's your partner in crime?"
Of all the people to have showed up at the Gala, she never expected to have seen Roman Sinquerra - the father of her oldest, and once upon a time her boyfriend - with a knife pointed at her back, literally speaking.
"If you want to keep your entire team safe from Matthew Clark, do what I say and come with me quietly. Now." He had snuck up behind her, bold of him to have done that with Nick right by her side, but in the chaos of the darkness, Roman seemed like he was waiting for the exact second to grab her.
His voice had stayed the same after 15 years, if only a bit more rough and older, but Morgan recognized it instantly; and in the shock of processing the fact that it was really him, just materializing out of thin air and in the midst of kidnapping her, well… it was a lot to take in to say the least. In all honesty, she would have guessed someone like Matthew would have had a lackey doing his grunt work, not someone like Roman working with him. And just how did two completely different men - maybe not all that different - she thought, even cross paths with each other?
"Ah, Morgan. There you are." Matthew Clark's voice echoed across the room as he entered just behind Roman. "It's good to see you again."
Having her ex turning up out of nowhere was one thing, but Morgan couldn't hide the chill she felt down her spine when she locked eyes with the Game Maker himself. She remembered everything from the day he had started toying with her and the rest of the team, playing with the lives of the people he'd kidnapped, sending them games to play and solve to find and save them; Oz still confessed to having nightmares about drowning every once in a while. It was impossible to shake off Matthew Clark's particular brand of sadism that he thrived on. She wondered if there was a game that he'd sent to the team in order to find her location.
"Wish I could say the same, but uh… you could have just called y'know?" Morgan said as she adopted an air of indifference, trying to stay composed.
"I did send you a message, don't you remember?" Matthew pointed out, "It wasn't very nice of you to have ignored me, Morgan. I thought we were friends."
"Friends? Ha! Is that why you decided to just kidnap me instead?" She countered.
He simply shrugged as if he'd had no choice in the matter; Roman was silent as he watched the two of them, and it was hard to get a bead on him, to figure out what it was that he was thinking.
"What can I say? I missed having someone to play with; I couldn't really find anyone of my caliber in prison. I was getting bored." Matthew said as if it was very obvious.
"So… your only option was to break out of jail and bring me to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere to what? Continue whatever game you have in mind?" She asked him outright.
"Something like that." Was all Matthew said in response.
Morgan rolled her eyes and directed her attention to Roman; this was the farthest from anything she had imagined their reunion going. Of all the possibilities and places to have found him after all these years of searching, he was here at last.
"And where, pray, do you fit into this equation Roman?" Morgan had a million questions for him, but chose to keep it simple.
"I was in jail and I crossed paths with him," Roman finally spoke up, gesturing to Matthew, "and we realized that we had something in common."
"Me. How touching." Of course it didn't explain everything, she was still baffled at this odd partnership, but she needed to keep them both talking, figure out what exactly their plan was.
"You know what they say, the ex-boyfriend of my friend is a friend of mine." Matthew chimed in.
Morgan chose not to comment on Matthew's words, realizing now that Roman had been hiding right under their noses from the very beginning? Maybe?
"If you were in jail this whole time then how did no one figure it out?" She asked.
"It's actually ingenious how Roman here managed to evade detection." Matthew was more than eager to answer for his partner, "You see Morgan, he burned off his fingertips several years ago, so when he did get arrested, the name Roman Sinquerra didn't show up in the system because it couldn't."
"I used a fake name, Antonio Vasquez, got arrested for a crime that kept me alive and unnoticeable. I was nobody to the outside world; on the inside, I kept to myself mostly, biding my time until it was safe." He kept his answers short and concise, revealing just enough but without anything that would implicate him.
Morgan's eyes widened at his calm explanation of just willingly choosing to go to prison; it made absolutely no sense to her, there had been sightings of him over the years hadn't there? And Arthur himself had told her- didn't Erik Hayworth have something to do with his disappearance? Why would he have not run off to Mexico or some island where he wouldn't be found? She couldn't believe what she was hearing, none of this made sense.
"You've killed an FBI agent Roman!" She exclaimed, "How could you possibly think that you'd be safe? You were an informant for them, you were working with her weren't you? Lyla Flynn, and then you killed her when she was going to come clean about the money laundering-"
"You don't get it do you? Huh Morgan?"
"No. I really don't. And don't you even try telling me that you were doing it for mine and Ava's sake. To keep us safe."
"There are things that you still don't know about, things that could put you in danger if you were to find out."
"If you're talking about Willa Quinn, I've already had the displeasure of meeting her."
"It's not just her, Morgan, this goes beyond one person." Roman rolled his eyes, knowing full well that Morgan always thought she knew better than him.
"We used to be a team Roman, do you remember that?" Morgan took a step closer and poked him in the chest as she spoke, "The RAMs. You, me and Ava; what happened to us? How exactly am I supposed to look our daughter in the eye and tell her that her father was the one who kidnapped me!"
Morgan knew she had touched a nerve at the mention of Ava, because the moment the words left her mouth, Roman immediately shut down; she hoped that it meant she'd gotten through to him, but before she could say something more, he gave her a look she'd never seen in all the years that she'd known him and without saying anything, he left the room, slamming the door behind him loud enough that Morgan couldn't stop herself from flinching.
"Well, now look at what you've done." Matthew was still standing across from her, having watched the whole exchange between them without saying anything. Until now. "And here I thought we were going to have a nice reunion before the games began… I suppose I'll have to change things up now."
"What do you mean by that?" Morgan frowned, not liking the sound of that; she could deal with Roman, she knew him and she understood him, more or less, even if she couldn't figure out his motivations for kidnapping her, but Matthew Clark? He unsettled her. A lot.
"Ah, don't you worry your little head about that my dear," He started to say as he uncrossed his arms and stretched, while faking a yawn, "You should try to get some sleep, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
"Wait-"
"Ah ah ah, good things come to those who wait. I promise I won't start blasting rock music in the middle of the night to wake you up. Well, I don't think I will anyway."
And with that, he followed Roman and locked the office, leaving Morgan well and truly trapped.
"Well baby, I guess it's just you and me again now." She sighed, knowing it was pointless to try and go after them; she wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl yet, there were more pressing matters on hand to think about.
The layout of this room had no escape routes, no vents or windows, but she still could use the makeshift rope that was less "rope" and more of a convenient method to perhaps subdue one if not both of her kidnappers, should the opportunity arise. Taking a few deep breaths to relax her mind, Morgan lay down on the sofa, and closed her eyes, but instead of going to sleep, she had a different thought.
"I'm gonna tell you all about your Dad, it's gonna take a while, but luckily we're not in a rush are we?" She smiled at her joke, "He's a police captain and so brave, he'll always do the right thing, he's good looking, tall - very tall if you ask me, so there's a chance you might take after him when you grow up. I don't mind though, because he's one heck of a guy; he's going to find us you know. Trust me. I know he is. And when he does, I'll tell him about you, he'll be so happy, you'll see. He's going to be an amazing father."
Morgan spent the next hour talking to her baby about Nick, remembering the first date they had gone on together after their first kiss; going to a restaurant near Bel Air that played live music and much to her surprise, in between their meal, Nick impulsively decided to ask her for a dance and pulled her on the dance floor. It had been absolutely magical. And before she knew it, Morgan had fallen asleep with both her hands resting protectively over her stomach.