Work Text:
The phone rings five times before someone picks up.
Morgan holds it to her ear, listening for the sound of movement.
“Hey.”
Oz’s voice comes through the phone, and Morgan breathes a sigh of relief.
“Hi.”
There’s a pause.
“Uh…did something happen? Is it him?” Oz’s voice comes through again. He sounds unsure.
“Oh right, no! Sorry, I just wanted to…I don’t know, check in!” Morgan says it too quickly into the phone, and mentally kicks herself.
“Oh yeah. I’m good. How’re you doing? I’m guessing all that self isolating must be killing you.”
“Yeah. Honestly, all of this being cooped up is having a very adverse affect on my family. We’ve been fighting like wolves.” Morgan says, pulling at a loose thread on her jumper.
Oz laughs through the phone, but Morgan can tell something’s off. She vaguely wonders in the back of her mind if Daphne’s clocked it as well.
“All of this for some guy who’s just toying with us to toy with us….” She continues.
A silence. Then a “yeah.”
Morgan swallows.
“That’s uh…that’s actually what I was calling you about. I guess I just wanted to see if you were managing alright? Karadec mentioned that Soto made you take some time off….” Morgan trails off, her brain spinning.
Admittedly, she had been concerned when Karadec had mentioned Soto making Oz take a few days off. It had started alarm bells in her brain, and they hadn’t stopped going off all day. For anyone else, it would seem normal. Oz had just basically drowned, of course he would take some time off. But Morgan knew better. And not in her normal, really smart, nothing gets past her way. No…she just knew that something had to be wrong.
They had gone through similar things, after all. The game maker had come after her, was coming after her. He had gone after Oz. He had gotten to Oz. Nobody else in the bullpen could relate to that.
Plus, she and Oz were more alike than he thought. Morgan knew that the others viewed her as some type of genius, something that they could and would never be. While their brains perhaps didn’t work in the same way as hers did, they really weren’t all that dissimilar to her. Especially Oz. The way they both thought, the way they felt, the way they acted. It had clicked into place after she had had that talk with him at the back of the ambulance. He may not have HPI like her, but they certainly shared similar qualities.
And similar experiences.
And she knew that if Oz was anything at all like her, he would not be doing well home alone right now.
Morgan realises that she’s been so lost in her thoughts, that Oz is talking and she hasn’t heard one word of it. She tunes into the last part.
“…y’know? And Daphne is checking in as well, and I’m grateful for it, but they all wouldn’t need to check in if I could just be at work, solving the case, right? I just want to catch this guy, I mean, I can’t stand the thought that he’s still out there, terrorising your family, ready to hurt others…I just need to catch him, Morgan. I just…need to.”
His breathing is getting quicker, and he’s talking a mile a minute down the phone.
“Woah, hey, hey Oz, slow down. It’s okay, I get it, I get it….” Morgan says.
There’s silence on the other end of the line, other than quick, shaky breathing.
“You okay?” Morgan asks, keeping her voice gentle. The way she does with Elliot when he’s had a particularly rough day at school.
Still more silence, other than choked breathing.
Morgan sighs.
She knows what she needs to do. It may be stupid, considering the fact that she’s being stalked by the man who had hurt both of them. But she wasn’t about to just leave Oz alone like this.
She grabs her wallet, and her keys, and tells Ludo she’s heading out on a quick trip.
He looks at her as if she’s insane, but knows better than to argue with her, and nods his head. He tells her to be safe. She assures him that she will be, and then she’s off.
Oz is still on the line, but Morgan isn’t sure he’s taking anything in, air or otherwise.
“Oz? I’ll be right there, okay? Just hang tight.”
Still nothing. Morgan sighs, and presses down harder on the gas pedal.
She gets to his apartment about half an hour later. Daphne told her once that Oz’s apartment was nice, because he lived on the third floor, and could get a brilliant view of Los Angeles, especially the west side of the city.
The west side. That meant that his apartment was on…the left side of the building.
Morgan parks her car, shuddering at the image of Daphne finding his airbag bloody and his tie in his car in this same parking lot she was in, only about a week ago.
She crosses over, heading for the stairs, then climbs up three floors to his, keeping a careful eye on everything around her.
“Oz? I’m on your floor…can you tell me what apartment is yours?”
More silence, to the point where Morgan is considering just breaking into each apartment until she found the right one, when Oz’s voice came through her phone.
“301.”
Great.
She heads towards the left side of the building, until she finds his door. She knocks.
Less than a second later, the door is swinging open and Oz is there, standing in front of her, eyes red rimmed.
“Morgan!” He glances around, as if checking if anyone’s watching, then gestures for her to come in.
“You shouldn’t have come, it’s dangerous.” He says, double bolting his door.
Well that works. Morgan had come over fully expecting to coax him out of his addled state, but it seems her very presence has done the job for her.
Instead of saying anything, she plonks her bag down on his counter, and looks about his place. It’s nice. And very, very…Oz. There are comics on the shelves, two jars of Nutella on the counter and dvd’s stacked in boxes over by the TV.
“You’re a ladybug.”
“What?”
Morgan turns to him.
“A ladybug. You like having a lot of storage to store all your things. Like me.” She gives him a smile.
His posture softens, and he takes a seat at the table, head dropping into his hands.
“You shouldn’t have come.” He says again, voice slightly muffled.
“Well I’m here now.” Morgan says, taking a seat beside him. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
He looks up at her, and for a moment, he looks so young that Morgan has to fight back the urge to give him a huge hug right there and then.
“No.” He breathes out shakily. “Not really.”
“I’m just so scared. He’s still out there…he could have more victims. Be plotting against the LAPD, against you, me, the others. Your family. He…he could be anywhere, and I can’t even be in the office, trying to catch him.”
“And uh…also….” He looks up at her, eyes glimmering. “I want my dad.”
His voice breaks at the end, and his head goes back into his hands.
Morgan wraps an arm around him as he shakes.
“I know. It’s okay…shhh….”
They sit there for god knows how long, just breathing and being in each other's company.
Eventually, Oz straightens up, shooting her an embarrassed, shaky, half hearted smile. Morgan smiles right back.
“Thanks. Sorry.” He says, voice hoarse.
“Don’t apologise.” She says immediately.
“Oh!” She claps her hands, and reaches for her bag.
“I brought these for you.”
Morgan pulls out a whole box of a dozen doughnuts, pushing them towards Oz. He stares, wide eyed at it.
“How’d that even fit in your bag?”
“You’d be amazed at what can fit inside my bag.” Morgan says, shrugging and pulling the box open.
Inside, there’s a mixture of doughnuts, glazed and sprinkled alike.
“So.” She looks up at Oz. “What’s it gonna be? Sprinkles day, or no sprinkles day?”
He laughs shakily, and looks down at his options.
“I think…it’s a glazed day.”
“Because you can never go wrong with glazed.” Morgan finishes his sentence for him, and he nods, reaching for one.
Morgan grabs one as well, and they sit there, in silence again, eating quietly.
After a while, Morgan glances at the time and sees that it’s past 10pm already.
“I better go….” She hesitates, watching Oz’s reaction.
“Yeah. Get back home, stay safe. I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She leaves the doughnuts with him, figuring that when it was a sprinkles day, he could enjoy it. Oz walks her down to her car, and just before Morgan gets in, he stops her.
“Morgan. I just…thank you. For everything.”
She smiles.
“Anytime. And you call me if you need anything at all, okay? If your brain is spinning out of control, or if you’re feeling heavy feelings, or if you just want to chat about our days. I get it. I’ll be there.”
He nods once and tells her to text him when she’s home. Morgan gets in her car. He waves after her as she drives off.
Tomorrow, she’ll call Karadec, and advise him to tell Soto that Oz should return back to work. That it will be good for him in the long run.
Tomorrow, they’ll make another breakthrough on the case.
Tomorrow, they’ll be one step closer to catching him.
But for now, she’ll head home.
And she’ll check in with Oz tomorrow.