My Brother, Pretty Boy

"Aren't you coming to bed, baby?" Savannah stood on the basement stairs, already knowing the answer. Of course he wasn't coming to bed. He was bathed in sweat, and the punching bag was still swaying from his last volley.

Derek Morgan looked over at the woman he loved.

"Is Penelope asleep?" Eschewing the 'Baby Girl', in consideration of his fiancée.

"Out like a light. She's even snoring a little. Can you believe she only started with Jaeger?"

He chuckled. "I can't blame her for celebrating. She lost her whole way of life for months over this damn hit squad. It must feel great to get a reprieve."

"True enough."

Savannah stood on the stairs a few seconds longer, debating. There were ways in which she'd come to know her future husband very well, but that didn't mean she didn't continue to learn something new about him every day. Unknown to him, she'd witnessed something a few hours ago. An act of tenderness, one that confirmed for her that she'd chosen well.

Now, she sensed that what had precipitated that act of tenderness was still weighing heavily on Derek. But she was conflicted about addressing it.

Best to let him sweat it out of himself a little more. Then he might be ready to talk.

So she blew him a good night kiss, and headed back up the stairs.

Savannah did know him well. For that, Morgan was grateful. It wasn't in his nature to have to verbalize everything. Some things were better left unsaid. Sometimes for decades.

Mostly, he wasn't even a big fan of thinking about some of those things. Many had gone unarticulated even in his own mind, by choice…..and avoidance. He'd cultivated a self-image of strength, and near-invulnerability. For as long as he could remember, his body had been his refuge, and his shield.

Except for those times when it had been his enemy. The times when Carl Buford had seized control of it, made it do things he'd never wanted. Or when it failed to develop quickly enough to save him from ridicule. Or those times when Foyet had bested it, or Billy Flynn.

Each of those episodes had caused him to attack his routine with renewed vigor. Each of them had brought him to the gym, or the track….or the firing range. All ways to release his anger, his frustration, his aggression, his hurt.

But it wasn't working this time. He'd been at it for over an hour, and he was still as pent up as he'd been when he started.

Because it's not about me.

If it had been himself he'd been angry about, he would have known how to bury it. He was nearly expert at it by now. But it wasn't him. It was the man he still called 'Boy' and 'Kid'.

Even though I've long since stopped thinking of him that way. He is every bit a man.

And, somewhere along the way, to Morgan's great surprise, he'd also become something else.

Physically exhausted, but still worked up, Morgan grabbed a towel…and one last beer….and gave in to the thoughts and memories that wouldn't leave him alone.

In the beginning, he'd thought Gideon was out of his mind. Morgan had come into work one morning and been introduced to this…..stick…..who looked like he could be blown over in a stiff wind. Maybe all of 120 pounds in his soaking wet trousers and sweater vest.

This is supposed to be my backup?

For a while, the very sight of Reid had been an irritation to Morgan, evidence that Gideon had abandoned his own responsibility to the team, in the wake of the events in Boston.

He doesn't care anymore. Why else would he be torturing us with this walking encyclopedia? And he knows it. He even has to introduce him as 'Doctor' instead of agent, to convince all the LEOs that he's for real. Otherwise, they might think he just couldn't find a babysitter. And the Kid's mouth never stops, 'did you know this' and 'a little known fact'. Maybe they're 'little known facts' because they're useless? Ever think of that, Kid?

Kid.

It didn't seem formal enough. Morgan thought of Reid as an annoying child, but the 'Kid' didn't quite capture the 'quaint'. Which was the best….the kindest….word he'd been able to come up with.

It's like he's from a different generation. The clothes, the glasses, that hairstyle. The way he comports himself. The words he uses.

Morgan was no stranger to intellectual pursuits. He'd always been a good student, even if part of his college tuition had been paid by an athletic scholarship. And he had, after all, made a life's work of getting into the minds of serial killers.

So he couldn't quite account for why this new teammate seemed so alien to him.

Unless it was…..everything.

But the 'girls' seemed okay with him.

'PC' had never come easily to Morgan. He'd long since concluded that he was destined to be permanently, indelibly, politically incorrect. So the women on the team were 'the girls' and Garcia eventually became 'Baby Girl'.

Right around the same time, 'the Kid' had become 'Pretty Boy'. That was the time he'd noticed just how much 'the girls' had noticed 'the Kid'.

JJ even went on a date with him! It was probably a pity date, mind you. But I'll bet Ms. Pennsylvania Petite would have turned me down. It had to be pity…..right?

He'd been certain there had been no real attraction there. What was there to attract?

The Kid couldn't even pass his marksmanship test. And there was no way he passed the fitness test.

For a while, it had seemed like the entire team had gone crazy, from Gideon to JJ. This geeky, skinny, walking encyclopedia, always showing off with his pronouncements on just about anything, had seemingly won the hearts of the entire rest of the team.

Even Elle liked him. And she didn't like anybody.

But, then, there had been that time that Reid had solved the case using only his brain. It was only their resident nerd who'd been able to see the pattern of obsession in the setting of arson fires on a college campus. In spite of himself, Morgan had developed just a modicum of respect for what Reid could do with his brain, that he could not do, with his own.

And then the Kid had taken down the LDSK, in a split second move, grabbing Hotch's gun and firing from the floor, with his hands tied.

On the same day that I teased him about failing at the firing range.

Morgan had been worried about Reid that day. He'd been worried about both of them. But this was the first time the new kid had faced physical danger. And Morgan had been taken by surprise with how relieved he'd been that both of them had emerged from the room in one piece.

That was the first time he'd felt protective of Reid, and he'd been completely caught off guard by the feeling. He'd assured himself that it was the same reaction he'd have had to any innocent in danger. Right?

He'd been tested again, soon after, when it was Reid, and not he, who possessed the skill needed to approach a delusional man holding a train car full of hostages….including Elle. Even all these years later, Morgan had difficulty sorting out whether it was hubris or protectiveness that made him demand Reid teach him how to perform that one little piece of magic.

After it was over, he'd caught a snippet of conversation between Reid and Elle. She'd alluded to something that had happened on the train, and Reid had brushed it off. But Morgan's profiling skills had been well-honed, and he'd seen. There had been something to what Elle had said.

It was the first time he'd realized that Spencer Reid…..genius, geek, protégé…..was also a person of secrets. Like the one he'd kept from the team until tonight.

Over the years, and without realizing it was happening, Morgan had come to feel privileged for those times when Reid had chosen to share some of those secrets with him, when he'd chosen to confide in him.

I think the first thing he ever told me was about his nightmares. It was the first time I realized we actually had something in common. And I turned around and broke his confidence.

But it had been necessary. The Kid was struggling, and Morgan had simply built too big a wall between them. He couldn't help him. Help would have to come from Hotch, or Gideon. All Morgan could do was to validate his fears, by giving Reid just the slightest glimpse of his own.

Hmph. I never thought about it before. But it was Pretty Boy who broke through the barrier between us. There I was, razzing him about Star Trek or something, and he reached right on through and shared his nightmares with me.

There had been other shared confidences, and failed responses. It had been Morgan who'd seen through Reid's struggle in the weeks after Hankel. It had been Morgan to whom Reid had confessed his flashbacks, his identification with the victims.

And what did I do? Here, the Kid breaks down and tells me that the job is making him relive mortal terror…..and I tell him it's a good thing?! Fool!

He should have known. He'd lived his own trauma, witnessing the death of his father, and again, with Carl Buford. He should have remembered how the trauma could stay with you. But he'd been a profiler too long. He'd spent too much time in the heads of the perpetrators, and too little in the minds of the survivors. Most of their victimology focused on people who were dead. They didn't exactly go back and interview the survivors, after the fact.

But Reid was a survivor. And he was suffering. And Morgan hadn't a clue how to help him. But he'd known what he wanted to do.

Hankel. I could have ripped Hankel apart with my bare hands for what he did to Reid. But I didn't have to. Because the Kid took care of him.

In Morgan's book, that should have been enough. And, maybe for him, it would have been.

Unsub hurts me, I hurt him back. I make sure he can't hurt anyone else. End of story.

But, as he'd come to learn, for Reid, it had only been the beginning of the story. The fear, the helplessness, the shame, of that ordeal had taken a huge toll on the personhood of Spencer Reid. He'd lost himself. In a moment of clarity and desperation, he'd reached out to Morgan on the plane, and confessed his state, reaching out for... something….something to hold on to.

And I told him to hold on to his fear. Really, that's what I did. 'It's a good thing, use it.' It's incredible that he ever confided in me again.

But he had. In what had been the most intimate moment of their relationship…..up until a few hours ago…. Reid had shared a secret he'd held close since his boyhood.

By that time, Morgan had done some maturing of his own. He'd still been free with advice to the kid. But he'd also learned that a little humility could take one a long way. So he'd shared a little of his own past insecurity, trying to find something to bond over, with Reid. Trying to connect with his colleague…

Hmm. Colleague.

At some point along the way, the way he'd thought about Reid had begun to change. As had the younger agent himself. As had Morgan.

Maybe it was so gradual that I didn't notice it. Maybe it wasn't one particular case, or one specific event. Maybe it was an accumulation, by ounces, of respect.

Whatever, it had happened. And Morgan had reached out to his younger colleague. And been touched when Reid reached back….and shocked at what he'd said.

Here, I thought telling him I'd been awkward and skinny once upon a time would be something to bond over. Never mind that I still kind of thought of him that way. But my story had a happy ending. I should have known his wouldn't. I should have known he wouldn't have bonded with a killer over something trivial.

The story of Reid's humiliation at the hands of his classmates had infuriated Morgan, even knowing it was in the past, and even not knowing those who'd perpetrated it. The depth of his own reaction had taken Morgan by surprise.

Sure, I was trying to draw the Kid out. Sure, I was trying to bond with him. But I never expected my own response. It told me something, that day. We didn't need to bond. We were already bonded.

Which was why it wasn't all that surprising that he'd felt such a compulsion to stay behind and help investigate when Reid had been convinced his father was a pedophile and a murderer. Morgan had played dumb for the others, but he'd actually understood Reid's reaction to William's neglect.

If my father had been a part of my life, Carl Buford never would have been. My father wasn't there to save me. But he would have tried. He would have wanted to be. What could Pretty Boy say about his father? That he knew the Kid was already in trouble, and left him anyway? I get why he hates the man. I think I hate him, too.

It was also why it had been Morgan sitting at Reid's bedside, waiting for the younger man to wake up and make sense. Hearing Reid in the throes of an anthrax-induced dysphasia had been frightening. Having him wake up and ask for his beloved jello had been elating.

And who else was going to do it for him? He only had his mother, and she wasn't allowed to know about it.

Reid's mother. Diana Spencer. The first time Morgan had met her, she'd been a surprise visitor to the round table room. In spite of his training and his work…or maybe because of it…..Morgan had learned to give psychiatric illness a wide berth. It was something suffered by unsubs, not family members. He was completely put off by the oddness of Reid's mother, and, much to his later chagrin, found that his reaction to Diana had negatively influenced his perception of her son.

Until the next time he'd met her. That time in Vegas. She'd still been a bit strange, but it had been different. He'd made a little small talk with her, while Reid was interrogating his father. Later, he'd learned that she'd been less stilted because she'd been off her meds. And he'd learned why she'd chosen that option.

"She wanted to be clear, so she could remember. She wanted me to understand," Reid had explained. When Morgan hadn't understood the tears in his eyes, the young genius had added, "It means she chose to face her demons again, when she didn't have to. She did it for me. And for Dad."

Morgan wasn't so sure she'd done it for William. As far as he was concerned, William Reid was the scum of the earth. If Diana had made a sacrifice, it was for the sake of her son.

It was noble of her. That's where he gets it. JJ used that word about him once, and it just seemed so fitting. He puts himself out there….for us, for victims, even for unsubs. I saw it, when he downplayed his injury because Hotch's family was in trouble. I saw it with that kid, Owen. And I saw it when he sucked up his hurt and came to that goddamn pasta party at Rossi's. He did it for us, because he knew we could have come apart as a team. And he did it again, tonight.

His nobility, and his maturity, had earned Reid a new title in Morgan's mind, one that he held in addition to 'colleague'. Morgan might have clung to the use of his youthful eponyms, 'the Kid' and 'Pretty Boy'... but Reid had left his boyhood behind, and become a man.

He's the kind of man I aspire to be. The kind my father would have wanted me to be. Strong. Well, maybe not physically. But he is strong. People don't see that, but I do. He's strong. And, still he manages to be kind. Empathetic. And, yes, noble. He definitely didn't get any of that from his old man. It was his mother. And now he's losing her.

Years ago, Garcia had told him about that recording Reid had made when he'd thought he might die from anthrax. She'd even played it for him, sobbing all the while she was listening back to it. That was when he'd realized the reality of the bond. Reid didn't just tolerate his mother. He didn't just tend to her out of a sense of duty. He loved her. And he knew she loved him.

And that's what he's lost. He's not worried about his own future. He's mourning that he's losing her. That, for the three seconds that she didn't recognize him, he'd already lost her.

Losing Diana would mean Reid was alone in the world. Morgan couldn't even conceive how that might feel. No one to share a history, no one to remember your childhood. No one to worry when you were in danger, no one to dream about your future.

There had been a time, albeit brief, when Reid had dreamt about his own future. But Morgan had only become aware of it after the fact. He'd allowed a distance to fall between himself and his younger colleague. In the space of that distance, Reid had fallen in love. And he'd only shared his good fortune with the bulk of the team when it had turned to tragic misfortune.

I wish I could have celebrated her with him. I wish I could have been happy that he'd found love, even if it was only in his own, unique way.

But he'd only heard of Maeve after the events that would seal her fate had already been set in motion. He'd been flattered that Reid had shared her expression of love, and his failure to respond. And grateful that Providence had given him some words of consolation in that moment. He'd sworn he would never let that kind of distance come between them again, in the aftermath.

But it had. He'd met Savannah, and fallen in love himself.

And I owe that to you, my friend. If not for your example, I'm not sure I would have known how to do it. Hotch, Gideon, Rossi….they didn't know how to sustain it. Garcia is…..well, Garcia. And JJ's relationship….well, I give her credit for still being in it, even if I don't understand it. But somehow, I think you would have been able to make it work, with Maeve. You fell in love with her. Not with her looks, or her place in life. You loved her. That's how I love Savannah. And you opened me up to it. It's not my fault if she comes with good looks and a great job!

He smiled to himself, knowing that his friend would have done the same.

Friend. Another title the Kid had earned over the years. In fact, Morgan didn't have all that many friends. His job made it difficult, and his hobbies were few. So his circle of friends was small, limited mostly to the team. And, among them, Garcia and Reid were his closest.

So he'd tried to bring his young friend into one of his few hobbies. At first, it had been to meet the needs of the softball team. But, by game time….and definitely by the time of that last at-bat, it had been for the sake of his good friend.

I think I was more excited about that home run than by anything I've ever done myself. He had no confidence. My genius friend, totally out of his element. So he trusted me. Trusted. Me. Took my advice. And it paid off. The smile on his face that day is etched into my brain. I hope I gave you something that day, Pretty Boy. I wanted you to see yourself the way I do. A winner. A hero.

Yet another title the young man had earned. Hero. Morgan could think of many times he might have conferred the honor. Tonight was merely the latest.

You took her on, word for word, hit for hit. You kept her off balance, even when she didn't realize it. And you let her hurt you, to make her think she had the upper hand.

It wasn't lost on Morgan that Reid had revealed the information about Diana through his conversation with Cat Adams. He hadn't told any of the team directly, including Hotch. Including JJ, who was upset with him over it.

"Spence, I would have gone out there, if I'd known. You shouldn't have had to handle all of that on your own."

And she'd made sure to elicit a promise to come to dinner tomorrow night. His godsons missed him, she'd insisted. Morgan smiled over that. She might have been prescient, or she might not. But JJ had long ago made sure Reid was a part of her family.

Still, the young man hadn't felt comfortable announcing his plight to his fellow team members. So he'd allowed himself to be victimized by an unsub, 'forced' to tell his story in the course of his undercover work.

He didn't have to tell her. He's perfectly capable of hiding his microexpressions. He could have made something up. But he didn't. Because he wanted us to hear it.

All of them had been taken by surprise. Each of them hurt for him. Morgan had a sense of what it had cost Reid to make the disclosure.

And yet, he finished it. He rode the case out right to the end. Hotch may have thought he was going rogue….well, because he was…..but I was right there with him. It was like we'd scripted it. Like it was choreographed. I knew right where he was going, and he knew that I knew. Even with a gun pointed at his neck….

Pushing away images of the time a bullet had actually penetrated Reid's neck.

He could have been killed, and he knew it. But he did it anyway, for Baby Girl. He could have let Cat walk away when she wanted to, when we all expected her to, but he called her back. That, my friend, is courage. And loyalty. And family.

The long reverie had brought Morgan right back to the moment that had started it. They'd finished at the police precinct, and Hotch had magnanimously postponed reports until tomorrow. So they'd driven together to Morgan's place, where, Savannah had told them, they would encounter a soggy Penelope Garcia. But Reid had begged off going inside, and Morgan understood why.

Each of them had changed over the years. Each had grown, both together and apart. But there were still remnants of the early days in each of them. Morgan was still uncomfortable with words. And Reid was still the wary young man who couldn't quite believe anyone really cared about him. And Morgan couldn't have that.

Before letting Reid go, Morgan had turned to face him.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

And the big, brawny man had stepped over to his younger friend, and pulled him into an embrace.

"I just..."

"I know." Reid was never at a loss for empathy, even when he was returning it in kind.

Once upon a time, Derek Morgan would have thought it unseemly to embrace another man. He would have been embarrassed, deemed it an affront to his manhood. But Derek Morgan had grown up. And he loved the man in his arms in the way that could only be expressed by a single word.

He pulled Reid close, only to be pulled even closer. And, in that moment, he knew it. The most important title he would ever bestow.

Geek, protege, nerd, genius, colleague, friend, hero…..brother.