Creepy (
locketofyourhair) wrote2012-11-01 03:54 am
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
[Fic] Echo
800 | Reid/Morganish | PG (KB: phonesex/epistolary)
Garcia isn’t surprised to see him. The team is in Memphis, but he’s on bedrest and strict “no consultations, I mean it” orders from Hotch. The anthrax scared all of them. He won’t talk about what it was like, when his words failed him, and she knows that was the worst part. He might say that it was knowing he screwed up, and that he couldn’t help the team, but it was losing his words.
“Hey, Reid,” she says, and she tries to keep her tone light.
He sits down across from her, and he looks thinner than usual, like the disease sucked all the water out of him and left a Reid husk in its place. “I look that bad?” he asks, and he attempts a smile.
“Profilers suck.” Her heart isn’t in it. “What can I do for you, babe?” Her computers are processing and running lists, her babies off risking their lives for the innocent. She can afford to give him a little time.
Reid smiles. “I wanted--When I was in the hospital, I had a lot of time to think, about the team. I know I left a message for my mom, but I didn’t say goodbye--”
“Reid, sweetie, you didn’t need to say goodbye to us.” Garcia leans forward and squeezes his hand. “We know you loved us.”
Reid licks his lips. “Actually, Garcia, I just need to leave one more message, in case something goes wrong. I had a lot of regrets in the hospital, and I don’t want to compromise our working relationships, but it’s important to me that I get a chance to make something clear.” He presses his fingers together. “I’d leave a written message, but I’m aware of how fragile a written missive is, and the chances of house fire--”
Garcia holds her hand up. “Say no more, my sweet.”
Reid’s gone for a little over two days when Hotch makes the comment if they find his body, and she can’t sit on the recording anymore. She gets off the phone with Blake, sets her computers to run another filter search, and calls Morgan. His phone rings and goes to voicemail.
He calls her back not a minute later. “Lay it out, Mama,” he says, and he sounds so tired and so stressed it makes her heart hurt. She’d not kidding when she calls the team her babies, and right now she’s torn between frantic over the idea of Reid hurting somewhere (because he’s not dead, he can’t be) and the way Morgan’s voice goes rough and defeated before he can finish a sentence.
“It’s bad, isn’t it,” she says. “You’re not going to find him.”
“You can’t think like that Garcia. We have leads, and we know that the unsub took Reid to divert our attention and get us chasing him instead of chasing the unsub. It’s in his best interest to keep Reid alive long enough to get out of town.” Morgan sounds dead on his feet. His words are hopeful, but she knows in her heart that he doesn’t believe it. He’s looking at the percentages, and the odds aren’t in Reid’s favor.
“But it’s been two days,” Garcia says softly.
Morgan sighs. “But it’s been two days, and there’s a lot of small rivers and creeks in Pennsylvania.”
“We are not talking like that, my love. Reid is fine,” she snaps, and she dabs her eyes because she is not going to cry. Reid has to be fine.
Morgan is quiet again, and then he sighs. “Do you have something for me, Garcia? I need to--”
She shakes her head and clicks through to her private partition, where she keeps her team’s darkest secrets. She clicks on Reid’s file, then through a few folders. “You can’t give up on him,” she says.
“I’m not giving up, Garcia,” Morgan lies. She can tell he’s lying without seeing his face.
“Derek Morgan, your mother should wash your mouth out with soap,” she says, and then she presses play.
I don’t actually know how to do this. I’m not so good with recordings, and I don’t have the impetus of dying... Reid’s laugh sounds soft and shy over the line, and Garcia can’t hear anything else. She can’t hear Morgan at all. I guess. I just want you to know that it means a lot to me, that it meant a lot to me, when you stayed with me at Nichols’ house. You’re one of the most important people in my life, and I just. I needed you to know that.
Garcia turns it off, before it cuts into her and Reid talking. “He wanted you to hear that, in case--”
“I know why,” Morgan says, and there’s a tightness to his voice. She can almost see his face, the way he tenses up before he can school himself back to Derek Morgan cool. “I need to run something by Rossi.”
“Derek--”
“No, baby girl. Thank you for letting me hear that, and we can talk about it later, but I have a job to do. I have to find Reid, remember.”
And just like that, the line disconnects. Her computers start buzzing and she has to drop it until she has another minute to hear Reid’s sad and hopeful voice again.