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He’d heard the saying about how blinding hospital lights can be, but he’d never fully experienced it to this extent. He’d sat in a hospital waiting room countless times, nervously fidgeting as he waited to be told a loved one or victim was okay, but he’d never felt as blinded as he did now. Were the lights always this bright?
And what about the noise… hospitals weren’t normally this noisy, right? He couldn’t even focus properly because of the constant chatter and medical jargon being thrown around that he didn’t fully understand, not to mention that never ending beeping that rang from every hallway in all directions. How did the doctors and nurses manage to focus enough to get anything done?
What if they didn’t?
What if the noise was distracting for them too? What if it was so distracting that they couldn’t do their job properly, and someone on the operating table in front of them was potentially dying because that god awful beeping wouldn’t shut up for 5 seconds to let them stitch together an open wound on their neck to stop them from bleeding out and-
“I can’t take this.” Morgan stated suddenly as he stood, snapping Hotch’s attention from where he sat on the couch opposite him, staring at the same nothing he’d been looking at for the past hour, eyes following Morgan as he tried to walk towards another nurse that would surely tell him the same thing the last 5 had told him.
“Derek..” He tried, knowing it wasn’t going to get him very far.
Derek strode over to the nurse that was innocently walking across the hallway. “Spencer Reid.” He said matter-of-factly, as if the nurse would know what he wanted purely based off a name. She stared at him for a second, confusion plastered, before Derek spoke again, cutting off her question. “We haven’t had a single update in an hour. Is he okay?”
“Oh, uh..” She started, looking around the room to surely find another nurse who would be able to help her out. “He’s not my patient, so I’m not really-“
“Well find me someone who can help me!” Derek demanded, desperation taking control for a moment.
“Derek!” Hotch repeated, this time appearing behind him and placing a hand on the other man’s shoulder to ground him. “She doesn’t know.” He offered the nurse the best apologetic smile he could muster.
“But someone does!” Derek shrugged the hand of his shoulder, spinning to face his boss with a mix of anger and sadness plastered across his face. “Someone in this hospital knows if Spencer has died or not, and no one is telling me anything.”
“Sir, no news is good news.” The nurse piped up, trying her best to offer whatever comfort she could to this stressful situation.
Hotch opened his mouth to speak before Morgan cut him off. “No. No news is no news.” He spat back.
“Thank you for your assistance, ma’am.” Hotch took over, seeing where this was escalating and trying to salvage it before Derek made a scene. He placed his hand on Derek’s back, starting to guide him back to his seat. “If you could please find someone to fill us in on Spencer Reid’s state, that would be much appreciated.” He concluded, watching as she nodded and hurried away.
“I just need to know if he’s okay, Aaron…” Morgan softened, allowing himself to be guided back to his chair.
“I understand that. But causing a scene and yelling at nurses just trying to do their job isn’t going to help you.”
Derek collapsed into his chair with a sigh, his head dropping into his hands as he groaned in frustration, eyes clenched shut as he tried to recompose himself. “I know, I know, man… I just- ugh, I just need to know.”
Hotch took a seat beside Derek but didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Nothing that could make this better. The only words Derek needed to hear right now were ‘Spencer is alive. He’s okay.’ And if Aaron couldn’t offer that with guarantee, then all he could do was give the most support he could offer, and just be here for Morgan no matter what the outcome was.
Morgan and JJ.
“Jennifer, you’re going to run out of nail eventually.” He stated, watching the blonde pace up and down this same hallway countless times, chewing onto a nail until it was down to nothing, and then moving onto the next. She stopped for a moment as if only just realising the other man was here, looking at Hotch and then down at her hand, her eyes filled with worry and exhaustion, before silently nodding, placing her hand back down by her side and walking over to the duo, sitting in the same seat Hotch was previously occupying.
She sighed. “Reid would probably hate to find out I was biting my nails.” She said quietly, almost to herself.
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “He didn’t like it?”
JJ smiled softly. “I’m sure he knows some statistic about how many germs are carried underneath the fingernails that I would be transferring to my mouth.”
Hotch matched her smile fondly. “Better not tell him when you see him, then.”
“If.” Derek suddenly said, head still resting in his hands as he now stared down at his lap. “If you see him.”
The smile quickly dropped from JJ’s face. She slumped in her chair, hand immediately coming back to her mouth as she continued her mission to chew at her nails.
Derek stared at his lap, now only seeming to realise he still had on the same pair of pants he did this morning. The same boring, black cargo pants he went to work with. The same pair he went into the raid wearing. The same pair Spencer’s head was resting on as he bled out, gasping for air, wide eyes staring up at his lover for what could very well be the last time-
“Derek…” Hotch pulled him back from his train of thought, knowing full well that Morgan was lost in some stream of negative energy.
Without much more, Derek stood back up. “I need to go to the bathroom.” Was all he gave, not even waiting for anyone’s response as he walked down the hallway, straight past the closest bathroom door and instead opting for one a little further, needing a new location that wasn’t within the same vicinity as where’d spent the last several hours waiting to be told his boyfriend was dead.
As he walked, the lights seemed to get brighter, the noise seemed to get louder, the stains on his clothes and on his hands got bloodier. It became too difficult to think clearly, every possibility rushing through his head in flashing glances so fast that he couldn’t even focus on one at a time, all of them blending into one continuous thought: Spencer is dying.
These nurses are busy looking at files or laughing at each other’s jokes or dealing with other patients, all while his Spencer was dying.
Machines were beeping at him from across the room, letting him know that someone else was lying in bed, talking with their loved ones and eating jello, mocking him.
He needed to get out of here. He needed some peace and quiet and time to think and to breathe – where the hell was the bathroom?!
He glanced up, but the door seemed so far away. He couldn’t make it in time. He wouldn’t be able to get out of these lights in time for them to not burn him, or for the noise to not swallow him, or for the blood on his hands to not dry up and become permanently fused to his skin as a constant reminder of the man he failed to save and the life he wouldn’t be able to have anymore. Spencers panicked face would haunt him forever as he died in his arms, clutching to the last remains of his life, the haunting sounds of those jagged breathes being the last thing he’ll hear when he goes to sleep and the first thing when he wakes up.
Derek felt his own throat tighten up.
Did he have any injury too? He doesn’t remember getting one… Maybe his throat got sliced in the scuffling of the raid, not just Spencers? Had he been so stressed out he didn’t even notice his own injury?
He brought his hand to his neck, preparing himself for the wetness of his blood or the open wound in his skin, but when he checked it was still just Spencers dried blood that lingered.
It was getting harder to breathe.
Was the room filling with a toxic gas? He left his gas mask back at the office… He had to get people to safety. He had to tell the others. He glanced around, waiting to see people screaming and rushing out the doors, but no one was reacting. No one was panicking. Why could no one else sense the danger?
Maybe he’d been drugged. Someone managed to get the jump on him and slip something into his drink. But he hadn’t had a drink since before they left the BAU.. Since before Spencer died in his arms.
Spencer was dying.
Spencer was dying and no one else was feeling the danger.
There was danger. Something was wrong. He knew it. Why was no one panicking? No one cared… No one cared that Spencer was dying.
The lights were too bright.
Spencer was dying.
The noise was too loud.
Spencer was dying.
The bathroom was too far away.
Spencer was dying.
The blood on his hands wasn’t going away.
Spencer was dying.
He couldn’t breathe…
“Derek? Woah.. woah pal, Morgan you with me? Oh my god, okay listen to me, you need to breathe, alright? Just breathe, everything is fine…” Someone was talking to him. He didn’t know who. They sounded worried, but not worried enough for whatever danger was clearly nearby that made Derek not be able to breathe. It must have been something that only was affecting him. He had to warn them… tell them the danger.
“I-I-I can’t- there’s some-you have to- I-“ he tried, but every time the sentence started he would lose it, his air running short and not letting him think properly.
The person nearby must have sensed the danger finally, as they firmly grabbed his shoulders to keep his attention on them. “Derek, you’re having a panic attack, okay? Look at me. Derek, look at me.”
A panic attack? That made sense… It had been a while since he’d had a panic attack. Not since he was a kid. When he thought he’d tell his mum about what was happening at the youth centre with Carl but-
Oh my god, Carl.
Just the thought of the man made his breathing quicken more than it already was, if that was possible, and Derek thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Spencer was dying and he couldn’t breathe. Just like Spencer couldn’t breathe. Why did Carl deserve to breathe but Spencer didn’t? It wasn’t fair…
“Look at me, Derek!’ The voice came back with more assertiveness, and Derek finally managed to pull himself away from his thoughts to look at the person in front of him. It was Emily, and she looked quite concerned. “Okay, that’s good. Now, turn around, place your hands on the sink and just breathe. It’s easy. You can do it.” The sink? Derek looked around and sure enough they were both in the bathroom he’d been heading to. When did they get into the bathroom? “You can do it. Grab the sink and breathe.”
Derek managed to make himself nod, at least he thinks he did, it was hard to tell with the room spinning, and turn himself around, gripping onto the edge of the sink for dear life, like his legs were going to give out underneath him any second. What else did Emily tell him to do?
“Alright, good job, good job… deep breathes now.” Oh yeah. Derek felt a hand on his back, gently moving up and down in comforting circles. “In… and out.”
He closed his eyes, trying to block out the lights and the thoughts running rapid in his mind to focus purely on Emily’s instructions.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
It was easy enough, surely. He’d been breathing his whole life. He could do this in his sleep.
His sleep.
He sleeps in his bed.
With Spencer.
“Nope, nope, get out of your head, you hear me?” Emily piped up from behind him. “No thoughts right now, champ. Just breathing. That’s all we’re going to do. We’re just going to breathe.” Derek opened his eyes long enough to see his knuckles turning white from how hard he was gripping the sink, which must’ve been how Prentiss was able to tell he was getting lost in his mind again.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“Great job.” Whatever Emily was doing seemed to be working. Derek felt his breathes slow down, he could feel the floor beneath his feet, the noise didn’t seem so loud… The danger was leaving. “Okay, what’s your name?” Derek managed to let out a breathy chuckle. “I know, it’s lame. But I need to know you’re back with me.”
He waited a couple seconds to take a few more breathes. “Derek.. Derek Morgan.” He managed to say.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“And where do you work?”
“The.. The BAU.”
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“Absolutely you do. And who am I?”
Breathe in.
Derek felt everything around him get clearer, and he took that as a sign that the danger was no longer present. The air felt clean. He slowly opened his eyes, not wincing at any bright lights anymore. It was just an ordinary bathroom. “You..” He started, looking up at Emily in the mirror before him. “You are my guardian angel, is what you are.” He flashed her the best signature Derek Morgan grin he could muster.
Breathe out.
She matched it with her best signature Emily Prentiss smile. “You feeling alright?” Her hand didn’t leave his back, not until he turned around to lean against the basin, crossing his arms in front of his chest and nodding. “I was coming back with coffee for everyone when I saw you in the hallway. You looked like a deer in the headlights.”
Derek thinned his lips, bringing his hand to rub over his head. “I don’t know what happened…”
He felt a presence beside him as Emily leant against the sink with him, their hips touching. “You’re worried. We all are.” She said bluntly.
“Thank you.” Morgan piped up, leaning his shoulder into her.
“Maybe thank the poor janitor that has to clean all the coffee I dropped to rush over to you.” There was a brief pause that hung over them as they sat together in silence. Not awkward, just a relaxing silence… “So…” She brought his attention back. “You and Spencer, huh?”
She barged her shoulder into his playfully just as he had done, laughing as the mood in the room lightened, Derek being unable to not match the same positive energy that followed Prentiss around with her everywhere as he chuckled softly, any stress from the previous minutes forgotten, even for a moment. “Yeah… Me and Spencer.” He smiled fondly.
“How long as this scandalous behaviour been going on?”
“Just over a year now.”
“A year?!” She gasped, once again pushing into him. “I thought you were going to say a couple months… how on earth did you manage to keep it a secret? How did you manage to get Spencer to keep it a secret?”
He shrugged. “Actually, he was pretty on board with it for the most part. He’s not very ‘scandalous’, ya know? He was worried about losing his job if anything. He could recite the exact paragraph and sentence in our contracts that state the risk of dating colleagues within the FBI.”
“Did Hotch know?”
“Yeah.” Emily opened her mouth to protest before Derek cut her off. “Spencer wanted to tell him. He couldn’t handle the pressure.” Derek laughed. “Hotch was… actually supportive for us. But said it would still be best for us to keep it quiet for now…”
“Just in case it didn’t work?”
“Something like that. That’s what he said, anyway. But I think he was mostly worried about Spencer, to be honest. He’s always had a soft spot for him, and he didn’t want him getting embarrassed if word got out about us but then it didn’t work for whatever reason.” She nodded but ultimately said nothing else. The sadness returned. “I can’t lose him.”
Emily’s features softened. “He’s going to pull through.”
Derek shook his head. “You don’t know that. No one knows anything.”
“Then tell me.”
Derek looked up at her now, confusion in his eyes. “Huh?”
“Tell me something. ‘No one knows anything’? Well enlighten me. Tell me something.”
He knew what she was doing. She was distracting him. Getting him to think positively instead of the constant negative and worrying thoughts flowing in and out of his mind, and in any other circumstances he probably would’ve just left it and walked out. Morgan wasn’t much of a sharer when it came to his personal life. But this wasn’t normal circumstances… and he could humour both himself and Emily for the time being if it meant a small distraction.
With a preparing inhale, he looked straight ahead at the wall, using it as his blank canvas while his memories came to light before him. “Spencer hates video games. I had him playing this Star Wars game I’d heard about because man he loves Star Wars… It was a battle game, the one where you have to fight the opposing team and run away and that. I actually had a pretty good time with it. But Spencer? He maybe lasted 10 minutes before he gave up. He said he hated how ‘out of control’ he felt with it… the stress of not knowing what was next or what the outcome could be. See, when he’s on the field he can read people, take in his surroundings and come to a conclusion on the how things could potentially turn out. But in video games? It’s all pre-programmed and there’s no way to change how it ends, you just choose how long it takes to get there.” Derek smiled fondly to himself. “So after that I bought him Animal Crossing.”
Emily laughed next to him, but once again didn’t say anything else, instead letting Derek decide the pace.
“Our first date was an accident. It wasn’t meant to be a date… I actually had a date with a chick I’d met a week prior, but the night of she pulled out. I was all ready to go, heading straight from the BAU to the bar, and Spencer had had a rough day with the case we’d been working on and he looked like he needed a drink, so we ended up going out to relax. I don’t know what was different. We’d gone out plenty of times for a drink, but he’d ordered himself this fancy cocktail with cotton candy, and he’d gotten some stuck on his nose without realising. I stared at it for nearly 5 minutes thinking through how to tell him, but for some reason all I could come up with was to lean forward and wipe it off for him. I must have leaned too far forward or something because the next second we were so close we could basically feel each other breathing, but he didn’t move away. You know how he can be with germs sometimes. He didn’t budge. And from then on the dynamic shifted. We didn’t even do anything about it for another 2 months, actually. Can you believe he was the one to ask me on a date?” Morgan chuckled. “I didn’t even have the balls to be rejected by him. He doesn’t have social awareness, ya know? I thought maybe he just didn’t realise how he was acting or how something had changed between us, but he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. He invited me to the movies. Some new horror movie he wanted to see… oh yeah- did you know Spencer likes horror movies? That was certainly a surprise. I’ll never forget what he said… ‘movie starts at 8pm, so come pick me up at 7:15.’ And then he just walked off. He was nervous as all hell, I could tell, but man the confidence he had for that. I don’t even really remember what happened in the movie… I spent most of it working up the courage to hold his hand. I didn’t know if I should. He always says he doesn’t like shaking hands with people.”
“Did you? Hold his hand, I mean?”
“Every girl I’ve ever dated I’ve never hesitated as much as I did with him. I was a wreck. He probably could feel me shaking in the seat next to him. But like I said, he was smart with it. He offered me some popcorn, and I didn’t realise his hand was already in the bucket so when I reached in our fingers touched, but he didn’t move. So, in a way, I guess he helped me hold his hand?”
Just then, Emily’s phone rang out, breaking them out of their heart to heart and snapping Derek back to reality and away from his loving memories. With an apologetic look, Emily reached into her back pocket and answered. “Prentiss.” She said factually, and Derek could faintly hear a deep voice on the other end, watching as Emily’s features shifted a million times within the 5 second phone call. “We’re coming.” She said urgently, hanging up and Derek didn’t need to be a profiler to know what it was about.
“Spencer?” He practically shot up, every anxiety he’d felt minutes ago suddenly back tenfold.
Emily stared at him for a second, her face unreadable, before her eyes softened and a small grin washed away every doubt and unease Morgan had just felt. “He’s out of surgery.”
“He’s alive?
“He’s alive.”