Spencer Reid needed to talk to someone. The only problem was that he had no idea where to go anymore.

Sure, he had forgiven JJ for leaving him in the dark about Emily's survival, but after those ten weeks of misery he couldn't go to her. He couldn't go back crying to her house when she had lied to him last time.

That left Prentiss and Hotch out as well, since they had also kept the secret. He couldn't stand to face any of them with this.

That left Garcia, Morgan, and Rossi.

Garcia would make way too big of a fuss.

That left only two options.

Reid started up the engine of his car and began to drive.


Derek Morgan was removing the top of Carly, a busty brunette that he had met at a local bar, when he heard someone knocking at the door.

"You aren't seriously going to get that?" The woman asked, pouting as Morgan headed towards the door.

"It'll be just one second," He promised.

Derek hadn't wanted to answer the door, but he was worried that it would be something important. He couldn't imagine who would be showing up at his door this late.

He opened the door to find Reid standing on his porch with red-rimmed eyes.

"Come inside," Morgan automatically reacted.

"Thanks," Reid mumbled as he stepped through the door.

Derek closed the door behind himself, and motioned for Reid to sit down on the couch.

Seconds after Reid sat down, Carly's voice came from the bedroom, "Hurry up or I'll start without you."

"I should go," Reid said awkwardly as he stood up.

Morgan grabbed Reid, who was rushing for the door.

"No, you're staying here," Derek told him, while giving him a look that said it was not an option. "I'll get ri-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Carly came wandering into the room in only a bra and a short skirt. Reid noticed her, then immediately dropped his gaze.

"Who's the kid?" She asked. "Is he like your nephew or something?"

Reid would have glared at her, but he was uncomfortable looking up while she was so skimpily dressed. Instead he gave the floor a death glare that would have even made Rossi cower in the corner afraid.

"Don't call him a kid," Derek told her defensively, much to Reid's surprise. Sure, Morgan called Reid a kid, but that was different because they were friends. But Morgan didn't like the way that Carly said it as if she was looking down at him.

"Okay, sorry," She muttered as she looked between the two men and seemed to realize something.

Morgan's hand was still on Reid's arm, keeping him from leaving, and it was clear that Reid had been crying.

Carly turned to Reid, "I didn't know that he was with anyone. I swear I wouldn't have come home with him if I had.. I'll just grab my shirt and go.."

Reid's head whipped up in confusion, but the girl had already rounded the corner on her way to get her shirt.

"Does she think-" Reid tried to ask.

"Just let it go," Morgan said as he finally removed his hand from Reid's arm.

Carly re-entered the room, this time wearing her shirt, and apologized again before leaving.

"Sorry that I interrupted your uh.." Reid trailed off awkwardly.

Morgan would have laughed at that, but he was too worried about Reid for that.

Reid wasn't his usual self. He seemed more fragile than usual. And he hadn't gone onto a single rant yet. Morgan took in Reid's pale appearance. Spencer's eyes were puffy and teary. His hair, which was usually neat and orderly, was sticking out in every direction. Morgan would have called it sex hair, but he figured now wasn't an appropriate time to start making jokes.

"What happened?" Morgan asked as he sat down next to Reid on the couch.

Reid started to feel incredibly stupid for coming there, but the look in Morgan's eyes said that he wouldn't escape until he'd told him.

"A nurse at my mom's institution called today," Reid mumbled, looking at anything and everything other than Morgan. "She- They said that she committed suicide this morning."

"Spence, I'm so sorry," Morgan told him. Reid might have found something off about Derek calling him Spence, but his mind was a little distracted.

"It's my fault." Reid stated, looking up to make eye contact with Morgan. He was expecting some sort of reaction... Shock, laughter, something...

Instead Morgan's face remained exactly the same as he replied intensely, "That's not true."

"How would you know?" Reid asked, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Because I know you. And I know how much you care about your mom. I know for a fact that it wasn't your fault," Derek told him.

"You're wrong," Spencer replied, his eyes darting away once again. "The last time I saw her she begged me to take her out of that place. And I ignored her. I told her no and I left and she killed herself seven days later. How is that not my fault?"

Derek had never seen Spencer fall apart like this, he wasn't exactly the go to person when people were upset. Except with Garcia.

"With your job there's no way that you could take care of her. She needed to stay there, Spence. There's no way that you could have known that it would happen," Morgan said as he wrapped an arm around the younger man. "You did what anyone else would have."

"It's my fault," Reid sobbed into Morgan's shirt. "I should have at least visited her more often."

Morgan wrapped his other arm around his friend, hugging him tightly, "You saw her a week before. It wasn't because you didn't visit her enough. For God's sake, you sent her a letter every single day. She knew how much you cared about her."

"And she still left me," Reid said, his voice muffled from Morgan's shirt.

Derek ran his fingers through the back of Spencer's hair in an attempt to soothe the man.

"I shouldn't have come here, I'm a mess," Reid mumbled.

"I'm glad you came," Derek told him. "You needed to talk to someone about this."

"Please don't tell the rest of the team about this," Reid begged. "If Hotch finds out then he'll make me take some time off and that's the last thing I want right now. I just want to go to work and distract myself and pretend that everything's normal. And even if Hotch lets me stay, everyone will look at me differently. They'll give me their pity faces and Garcia will fuss over me and I swear to god I won't be able to take it."

"I promise I won't tell anyone," Morgan told him. "You should get some sleep, we have to work tomorrow morning. You can take my bed, I'll take the couch."

"Sleeping in your bed is worse than sleeping in a hotel bed," Reid responded. "And there's no way I'm going to be able to sleep."

"Can't you just humor me and try?" Morgan asked. "And I swear my bed's clean." Well, it was cleanish, but Derek just wanted to get Reid to agree to try and sleep.

"Fine," Reid replied.

"Good," Derek responded as he removed his arms from Reid.

The two walked into the bedroom and Reid crawled into the bed.

"Can you stay here until I fall asleep?" Spencer asked. He was embarrassed, but he really didn't want to be alone with his thoughts.

"Sure," Morgan replied, sitting down next to him on top of the covers. He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes.


Apparently at some point Derek had fallen asleep and slid down onto the bed because when his alarm went off the next morning, he woke up with Reid's arm across his chest.

He turned the alarm off and carefully slid out from underneath his friend's grip. He figured that the kid could use his sleep, so he wouldn't wake him up quite yet.

Derek went into the washroom to go for a shower. When he returned to his room, with just a towel draped around his waist, Reid seemed to have just woken up. Reid sat up and did a couple of stretches while Morgan grabbed a set of clothes out of his dresser.

When Spencer saw the clothes in his friend's hands, he looked down at the wrinkled clothes he was wearing and groaned.

"I can't go to work like this," Reid pointed out.

"I know, that's why we're going to your place as soon as I get dressed, Pretty Boy," Morgan responded.


Morgan dropped Reid off at his house and said that he would be back in a few minutes.

When he returned, Reid was already ready and instantly headed for the car. He looked like his normal self again.

As soon as he got into the car, Morgan handed him a large coffee from the nearest Dunkin Donuts. He had also got a coffee for himself and two donuts.

"I got it the way you like it, with ridiculous amounts of sugar in it," Derek told him.

Reid took a sip. He wouldn't admit it to Morgan, but he thought that it could still use some more sugar.

Morgan took his donut out of the bag, then pushed the bag towards Reid.

They ate as they drove. Reid downed his cup of coffee almost immediately and wasn't too happy when he ran out.

"You can have the rest of mine," Morgan offered the coffee addict.

Reid didn't have to be told twice, he grabbed the other coffee and was already finished when they reached the parking lot.


The instant that they stepped out of the elevator, they were rushed into the conference room to hear the profile of their latest unsub.

Derek tensed when he heard what the connection between the victims was. The unsub had killed three women who were pregnant with their second child, each close to their due date.

His eyes involuntarily shifted to Reid to see how he would react. He didn't. Spencer just sat still, making sure to keep his emotions concealed.


They had a long plane ride ahead of them. It was supposed to take just over four hours.

Morgan and Reid sat together, with Morgan getting the window seat.

JJ sat across from them and planned on sleeping across two spots, since Henry had kept her awake all night with his nightmares.

Prentiss and Rossi sat together on the opposite side of the plane and Hotch sat by himself.

They tried to talk about the case for a few minutes, but gave up quickly when JJ started snoring.

Within an hour all of the team members, except for Morgan and Reid, were out like lights.

"Are you alright, Kid?" Morgan whispered. Reid had remained uncharacteristically quiet the entire flight so far.

"Yeah," Reid whispered back, although he didn't believe his own words.

Apparently Morgan didn't either, since he wrapped an arm around the younger man's shoulders. He didn't push Reid to talk, instead he made himself busy with staring out the window.

Reid made no comment or attempt to push him away.

Derek's hand lightly stroked Reid's arm, a subconscious act that he wasn't even aware of.

Within a few minutes Reid had fallen asleep with his head against the back of the chair. As time went on his head slowly slid down the side of his seat until it fell onto Morgan's shoulder.

Morgan wished that he could fall asleep, but he was too worried about Reid. The kid never liked to admit that he was having problems to anyone. This was obviously a big problem and Spencer wasn't alright or else he wouldn't have come to Morgan's house crying the night before.

Morgan didn't like having to keep this a secret from the rest of the team, but he knew that he had to. If he betrayed his promise, then Reid would get mad and wouldn't talk to anyone. Derek knew that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he was the reason that Reid shut everyone out and went back to drugs. He knew that he'd do whatever he had to do to protect the secret until the younger man was ready to tell the others.

While Derek was trapped in his thoughts, staring out the window, Emily woke up.

She looked around to see if anyone else was awake, only to find Reid asleep, cocooned in the crook of Morgan's arm. His head was resting on Morgan, who was holding him close. Derek seemed to be distracted by something as he absentmindedly stroked the sleeping man's arm.

Emily leaned across the centre of the plane and gently poked JJ to wake her up.

The instant that JJ saw the pair across from her, she loudly went, "Awwww!"

She said it loudly enough to wake up Hotch and Rossi and get Morgan's attention. Reid stirred a little in his sleep, but did not wake up.

"What?" Morgan asked, although he knew very well what everyone was smirking about.

"You two are adorable," Prentiss told him.

Morgan sighed, but didn't wake Reid up. Or even make any attempts to move the other man or loosen his grip.

"Oh my god, it all makes sense now!" JJ said excitedly. "Why you always call him Pretty Boy and you can't stop touching his hair..."

"And why Reid never dates anyone," Prentiss added, clearly on the same train of thought as her friend.

"There are a lot of reasons why Reid never dates anyone," Rossi pointed out.

"You two must have liked each other forever," JJ said, ignoring Rossi. "But now you two are together, right?"

Morgan knew that he had two options. Go along with their explanation or deny it. But if he denied it they would insist on an explanation that he couldn't provide. He hoped that Reid wouldn't hate him for having to hide the secret this way.

"Right," Morgan responded. "Me and Reid are dating now."


A/N: Please read and review! :) I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter!