Chapter Text
"Babe! Can I get some help in here, please?" Morgan's voice called out from the bathroom where she was getting ready.
"Coming darling!" It was the night of the annual police gala once again and Nick had finished changing into his outfit for the night already.
This year, the organizers had thought to do something different and settled on a theme - there was to be a Masquerade Ball - fancy dress and masks were a necessity; and much to almost everyone's reluctance, being the Captain meant that Nick gently insisted the entire Major Crimes Division attend, with no exceptions.
"You know Nick, I love Chloe very very much, but maybe next time let's not have my toddler pick out my outfit." Morgan said when she saw Nick standing behind her in the reflection of his bathroom mirror. "There's laces everywhere! How am I even supposed to get ready if I can't find all of them?"
"I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that, you look… stunning." Nick couldn't take his eyes off of Morgan as he took her in.
For his part, Ava and Elliot were the ones who took charge in getting the perfect costume chosen; a deep midnight blue jacket with gold trimming over a white shirt and black pants to match - "think Prince Adam from Beauty and the Beast, but a little more modern!" Elliot had explained when Nick had shown off his trial look. As for Morgan, Chloe was the deciding factor out of at least a dozen different gowns that she couldn't seem to have chosen one from. And now that Nick was face to face with her, he knew that it was just right.
"It's like a medieval wedding gown!" Ava gushed at the sight of her Mom who had been in the dressing room across Nick, but the kids had shooed him back inside to keep him from seeing Morgan.
"Well, that's not entirely accurate-" Elliot had started to say, "wedding gowns weren't the traditional white until Queen Victoria got married in 1840 to Prince Albert. She wasn't the first royal though, there was Phillipa of England in 1406-"
"Wedding gown or not, are we really sure this is it?" Morgan interrupted her children's conversation as she ruffled Elliot's hair and smiled.
"Yes yes yes!" Chloe had clapped excitedly, "Mama looks so very pretty!"
The not-wedding dress in question was a floor length, long sleeved ivory and gold gown that was off-shouldered with a corset top, with tiny hand sewn pearls along the bodice and flowers all around the skirt. Not to mention that Morgan had chosen to style her hair in a half updo, weaving ribbons just the way she had seen it in an 80s movie years ago.
"If you're done staring Captain, do you think you could give me a hand with these?" Morgan never blushed, but the way Nick was looking at her right now-
"Yeah, yeah… I'm here." He closed the distance between them, reaching for the laces on her sleeves first.
"Thank you." She whispered, giving him a peck on the lips while he worked.
It had been over a week since the letter from Matthew Clark, there were no further communications from the Twin Towers Correctional Facility where he was imprisoned; Karadec, Oz and Daphne were able to trace the messenger to one of the guards who worked there - dead from an apparent suicide in his apartment, which left them with not much to go on. He was just a means to an end for the Game Maker and of course, they had confirmed that their prisoner was still locked up, but his refusal to see anyone else who wasn't Morgan had left them at an impasse. Nick was in constant touch with the warden himself and had asked to be informed about any developments if any should arise.
"Nick…" Morgan started to say, but before she could go on, he raised a finger to her lips.
"Let me get your corset laced up for you." He knew what she was going to ask - to go confront Matthew Clark in jail directly - she asked him once a day, even though she knew he was going to say no.
"You can come with me to the prison, you know." She said with a sigh, turning around so that her back was to him.
Instead of answering her request, Nick simply tugged on the laces, just enough to get Morgan to hold her stomach as she breathed in, but not tight for it to be uncomfortable.
"You know my answer is still going to be no." He said and kissed her bare shoulder once he was done. "I'm not letting you anywhere near that man; I know that you can handle yourself and you disagree because it sounds like I'm trying to control you, but I made a promise to keep you safe and I'll do whatever it takes, even if it means you'll hate me for it."
Morgan spun back to face Nick with wide eyes and shook her head, she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"Don't you know by now that I love you?" She blurted out without thinking twice about the words she just spoke.
"I love you too Morgan." He answered her immediately.
A heartbeat of a moment passed between them and then a second, followed by the third. It was then did Morgan realize what she had just said.
"Oh." Her eyes widened at the implications of what they'd said to each other,"Did we just-"
"Say 'I love you' for the first time to each other? Yeah, we did." Nick said and kissed her.
"It only took us about seven months or so." Morgan pointed out with a wince and rested her head on Nick's shoulder.
"Hey, hey… there's no timeline on our feelings for each other okay?" He wrapped his arms around Morgan, holding her close, "And it's fine if it took us a while to say it out loud, I knew how you felt from the beginning."
"No I know. You're right about that… it's just-" Morgan sighed.
"Your brain has a way of making sure that your relationships don't last very long?" Nick quoted her words from almost a lifetime ago when they were just starting to get to know each other.
Morgan pulled away just enough for her to meet his eyes and swore in that minute, if she hadn't already been in love with Nick, then this would be the moment she fell in love.
"You remember." It wasn't a question, but the awe in her voice was unmistakable.
"I do." Nick said as he cupped her cheeks in his hands, "You're also thinking that you probably should have said something sooner, but the longer we went without saying 'I love you', the more you were worried about finding the right time to say it at all and then it just didn't come up?"
"Something like that yeah…" Morgan was no longer surprised at how well Nick knew her; they were both taking the time to put in the work into this relationship. "Thank you."
"For what? I didn't do anything."
"For everything really. Just… thank you."
"Does that mean you're going to stop asking me to go and see Matthew Clark?"
"Mmm…"
She bit her lip and tried not to grin, because as tempting as it was to keep this back and forth going with Nick, she did understand where he was coming from, and she didn't mind that she had a partner who loved her and wanted to keep her safe.
"How about this? A compromise; I'll go to the prison - on my own - first thing tomorrow morning and see for myself what exactly the Game Maker is planning." Nick suggested.
"He's not going to talk to you." Morgan said as a matter of fact.
"Well tough luck, he's not going to talk to you either."
"That's fine by me."
"Does that mean you're giving up?" Raising an eyebrow at her, Nick wondered what caused her to change her mind about this all of a sudden.
Instead of replying immediately, Morgan reached for a tissue from the box lying on the sink and dabbed at her lipstick before she tossed it in the trash can beside her; it was already filled with dozens of tissues covered in makeup of some kind or the other.
"No. I'm choosing to ignore the message," She finally started to say, and she meant it, "I probably should have in the first place, but it would probably have driven me mad if I didn't find out what he wants from me. And it still might, but I'll take my chances with my mind than with his."
"So… we're good?" He asked her.
"We're good, honest answer." Morgan smiled and kissed him, "I think we're going to be late for the masked ball if we don't leave soon however." She added, lifting his watch to show him that it was already close to 8 o'clock.
"Give me one more minute, there's one last thing I have to do."
"Nick…"
But before she could finish her sentence, Nick had disappeared into the bedroom, coming back to her in a minute with a velvet box in his hand.
"For you, my love." He said with a grin; it was too big to be a ring box and judging by the slender rectangular shape of it, Morgan thought it was perhaps a bracelet?
"You didn't have to get me anything…"
"I know, I didn't. Well not technically."
Morgan raised a curious eyebrow at that statement. Nick knew how she felt about gifts and had told him from the beginning of their relationship that she didn't need him to buy anything; but obviously the loophole was that he and the kids were always making gifts for her whenever they had time together - not just for special occasions, but whenever they felt like it.
"It was my grandmother's." He said by way of explaining, opening the box to reveal, not a bracelet, but rather a gorgeous string of a pearl necklace. "I'd say that it matches your gown perfectly, don't you?"
"This is absolutely beautiful, Nick thank you." She turned around and watched as he wore it for her, realizing that he was right, it complemented the entire look.
"Shall we head to the party?"
"Yes, don't forget to grab our masks though, I'll just let the kids know that we'll be home in a few hours to tuck them in, Chloe's been asking after you."
"Tell her I'll see her soon."
While Morgan called Ava for a quick minute, Nick stepped away to the bedroom to grab his mask - a deep blue with gold lining to match his jacket and a white lace mask for Morgan. If they left now, they'd be able to make it to the hotel just in time for the event to start - this year, to be a bit more cautious, the location was changed; it was not lost on Nick and his team that the last time the Annual Gala was held was when the Game Maker had surfaced and given the timing of his message to Morgan, well, they weren't going to take any chances. Instead of the Marina Hotel, they were at the Belamar this time around.
"Ready?" Morgan asked as she emerged from the bathroom.
"Ready whenever you are darling." Nick grinned and offered her his arm.
In no time the two of them had arrived at the Belamae Hotel where the Gala was already underway; there were officers and detectives, lieutenant's and captain's, the who's who of Los Angeles and almost every bigwig who was responsible for keeping the law enforcement agencies funded - with one very noticeable exception.
"Was he even invited to this?" Morgan had been chewing on the inside of her cheek, waiting before she spoke.
Of course everyone was wearing masks but it wasn't impossible to get a vague sense of who was who; Nick stood out in his own way, his height being one of the more obvious aspects.
"My father? Knowing him, he probably was and politely declined to join, unless of course he's sent a proxy for the silent auction. I wouldn't put him past that." Nick said as he handed a glass of champagne to Morgan.
They hadn't been able to really pin Nick Wagner Sr. and Willa Quinn into the throes of Roman's disappearance without it getting potentially fatal - again - so the team had chosen to try and tackle the case from any other angle that didn't set off any alarms.
"Well that's good enough for me." Morgan smiled and waved when she saw Daphne and Oz, both of whom were at the far end of the room with Soto and Karadec.
"You can say that again darling. " Nick agreed as he and Morgan made their way to meet up with the others.
It was at that exact moment though that the entire ballroom was plunged into darkness, and in a matter of seconds, chaos ensued as the fire alarm started to shriek, creating a panic amongst everyone there; people started pushing and grabbing at each other, trying to find their way to an exit that they had no sense of - glasses and plates were shattering, shouts and screams were echoing, and in the midst of all the commotion, Nick felt his arm around Morgan's waist getting pulled away.
"Morgan? Morgan!" Nick tried to reach for something to hold onto but-
And then just as the lights had gone out, it was as if a switch had been flipped and everything came back on, like nothing happened. The suddenness of it caused everyone to stop in their tracks, disoriented by the last… minute? Two minutes?
"Captain?" Karadec's hand on Nick's shoulder distracted him from trying to figure out where Morgan went; surely she had just gotten pushed by someone in the dark and was around.
"Detective, what's going on?" Nick kept looking at everyone, trying to see if he could spot her anywhere.
*ring ring* *ring ring*
"It's the warden from the prison." Before Karadec could get a chance to say anything, Nick answered his phone, there was only one reason for the call. "Hello, Warden Duffy. It's him isn't it? Yes. I see, okay. I'll do that. Thank you."
"Captain Wagner! I haven't seen Morgan anywhere-" Lt. Soto joined him and Karadec, Daphne and Oz were right behind her.
"She's been taken." Nick looked at his team standing in front of him, knowing that the worst had come to pass.
"What?"
"How do you know?"
"Why would-"
"What happened?"
Four sets of voices started overlapping each other as they all began to speak at once. Nick raised a hand to stop them. He was surprisingly calm for someone who had just said that the most important person in his life had been kidnapped.
"Matthew Clark has escaped from prison. I just spoke to the warden who told me that they found his cell empty and he's not anywhere on their premises. Think about it, this blackout that happened, out of nowhere for what? Less than 5 minutes? And now we can't find Morgan anywhere. We knew something like this would happen; he's taken her. I'm sure of it."
"If that's the case then we need to treat this like we would any other kidnapping. Luckily we have all the resources at our disposal." Lt. Soto started to say, but Nick shook his head, there were more pressing matters at hand.
"Actually Lieutenant, take Karadec with you to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility and get them to give you complete access to their systems - cameras, visitor logs, guard rosters, everything. I need to know who Matthew Clark was working with, there had to have been an associate, someone on the inside helping him, and let's find out how he managed to pull of this escape. I'll call the warden to let him know to expect the two of you."
"We're on it, Captain."
"Shouldn't we be coordinating a search grid from the hotel and accessing the cameras here to see where Morgan might have been taken?" Karadec asked him, wondering why they weren't already doing that.
"I'll get the entire department working on that Detective; we're going to set up our command center at Morgan's house instead of investigating from here or the precinct, my priority is to make sure that the kids are in a safe and familiar environment and be there for them."
"Do you think he'll call to set up a ransom demand for Morgan?" Oz asked the one question that he knew was on everyone's minds, it wasn't the way he did things of course, but the Game Maker was unpredictable.
"I don't know, we have to be prepared for that if it comes to it." Nick knew that they would need to get the house wired up to monitor all incoming calls and set up a trace if Matthew Clark did reach out, "Detectives Forrester and Ozdil, if I could have you go to Ludo's house and get the kids over to Morgan's safely and quietly please."
There were too many things to coordinate, but he knew that he had an entire team to rely on, and if they treated this like any other kidnapping case - even if it wasn't - every aspect of what they had to investigate would follow the same protocols. He was doing his best to focus on his breathing; panicking or worrying over Morgan and letting his mind follow that thread of thoughts would do absolutely nothing to help her and he needed to be clear-headed in order to find her, the chances of figuring out where Matthew Clark would have taken her were looking slim at the moment, with the power being cut, Nick knew that all the camera's in the hotel and surrounding vicinity wouldn't have been running-
"… dust that for fingerprints would you." His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the tail end of a sentence from somewhere near him.
The crime scene techs had taken over the entire ballroom by now and when Nick blinked, he realized that he was standing all alone, staring at nothing in particular, but now that he was drawn back to the present, something about the conversation caught his attention. Two of his people were examining a champagne glass that had been left untouched and normally it wouldn't have been noticeable to him from any other glass in the room, after all, they were identical in the dozens upon dozens, except for the fact that lying on the windowsill right next to the glass was Morgan's purse that she had been carrying with her.
"Excuse me, that champagne glass that you have there-" Nick started to say, but then stopped himself as a sudden thought slammed into his mind. A memory of something. What was it?
"Yes? What about it sir?" The tech who was holding the glass in his hand, looked up at his boss confusedly.
"Nothing. It's nothing, never mind, carry on." Shaking his head, Nick ran a hand over his face, knowing that he was probably leaping to conclusions without any proof.
Except- a sound suddenly reverberated through his mind as he recalled something. And somehow suddenly it wasn't so much of a stretch maybe. No.
"Call down to the valet, get them to release my car this instant." Nick grabbed the hand of the nearest officer passing by.
For almost the entirety of his career, Nick had always been a stickler for the rules, most of the time anyway; but the one thing that he tried to abide by was to never misuse his power as Captain. Save for tonight. As soon as he ran downstairs from the ballroom and crossed the main lobby, doing his best to redirect everyone who might have interrupted him with questions upon questions, exiting through the front doors, which was risky given the chance he would get mobbed by the media, but time was of the essence for him. He needed to get home; he got into his car, and turned on the sirens, pressing his foot on the gas, never once taking his eyes off the road and sped through all the traffic lights, replaying the same scene over and over in his mind from earlier that night with him and Morgan in their bathroom.
Tissues. Overflowing in his garbage can. Traces of makeup that he had barely noticed. And yet, there was something about the sight of it that had caught his attention at that moment, just enough to mention it to her, but when she'd brushed it off as trying to find the right combination of eye shadow and blush, he hadn't pushed. But the sound. The barely registered clink - or was it a soft thud? - of Morgan tossing her last balled up tissue as it hit the floor of the bin. Nick knew he was overthinking it, but he had heard it. And if it meant what he thought-
The ringing of his phone broke through his reverie; he picked it up and put it on speaker. He was just pulling up to the house.
"Karadec? What do you have for me?" He asked as he exited the car and took the steps two at a time.
"Sir, it looks like there was another inmate who escaped with Matthew Clark as well, an accomplice it seems."
"Do we know anything about this second prisoner?"
"Warden Duffy is working on getting us the details, we'll let you know as soon as the information comes in."
"Alright, I'll rendezvous with you and the others at Morgan's house."
"Yes sir."
Nick left his phone on the bathroom sink and took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he was about to do. He took one look at his reflection in the mirror and saw how quickly things had changed in the span of barely an hour since Morgan had gone missing; but he wouldn't - couldn't - rest until she was home safe.
"It's now or never." He said to himself and grabbed the trash can, reaching past all of the tissues Morgan had discarded until…
There. At the bottom. Something else that was tossed away. Nick pulled it out and stared, before he could even register exactly what he was looking at, his feet gave away, his knees buckled and he stumbled, barely able to grab a hold of the sink to steady himself as he fell to the floor.
No. No. No. No. No. He felt a panic attack starting to make its way through his body, his heart was racing and his breaths were erratic and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears; clumsy fingers reached for the cravat at his neck as he yanked it off, struggling to take in deep breaths and try to focus on something, anything, to stop his mind from spiraling out. He pressed the heel of his palms to his eyes and forced the tears threatening to fall to stop.
His phone rang again, the sound piercing his eardrums and centering him in the present moment. It was Ava. A lifeline to hold onto. To pull him back to reality and to keep breathing.
"Nick?" Her voice sounded so far away when he picked up the phone, almost like she was underwater, muffled and distant. It took him several seconds to realize that was him. "What's going on? Where's my Mom? Why is everyone here at the house? Where are you?" She sounded scared and confused and Nick knew he needed to get his head on straight.
"Ava…" His voice nearly cracked as he spoke, how had it changed in a matter of minutes he wondered, "Sweetheart, it's okay. I'm on my way to you. Everything's going to be okay."
"Something's happened to my Mom hasn't it?" Ava was a big girl, she could handle the truth, but the truth? Nick didn't know if he could handle it himself right now.
"I'll find her. I promise. I'll bring her home to us." Nick said and he believed the words as he spoke them, "I have to. Whatever it takes."
For sitting there on the floor of his bathroom, Nick Wagner had not just one life to save, he had two. Lying right next to him was the object he had pulled from the trash can - a pregnancy test. Morgan's positive pregnancy test.