Chapter 10: Tales of the South Pacific

Disclaimer: I own a few hundred poems, a half-finished manuscript for an original novel, and about 50 ungraded papers. (i.e. not any popular and beloved TV shows.) (If anyone wants the papers, you're welcome to them, but the other things I'll hold onto for a while yet).

Please remind yourself of the warnings in Chapter 1.

Something sticky and hot splashed onto the back of Kurt's neck and shoulder and he wondered if Karof—if He had come on him again. But air smelled like blood, not sex. The grip around Kurt loosened, and Kurt lunged away, practically diving off the bed.

Of course, he'd forgotten that his feet were still tied to it. He hit the floor hard with his shoulder, knocking his head, and his legs twisted. One of His legs was still positioned between Kurt's, and the movement did dislodge it, but something in Kurt's right leg also gave, then started throbbing. The blanket was just draped over his lower legs now.

Then there were hands grabbing at him, and Kurt thrashed wildly. He didn't know how his legs were freed from the bed but a moment later they were on the floor with the rest of him and his pants were still around his ankles. And incongruously, he was still wearing his socks.

A gentle tug, and the plastic filling his mouth was gone, and he was gasping in air. There were arms around him, and they were trapping him, and he hit at the solid shape in front of him as hard as he could with his still-bound hands.

The arms released him and he sat trying to breathe. Gradually he became aware of someone talking to him, of a phrase being repeated over and over. Eventually he realized what the words meant.

"Are you hurt?" Morgan asked again, and this time the boy looked at him.

"What?"

"Are you hurt?"

The boy frowned. "I—don't think so?"

If he'd looked seriously injured Morgan would have restrained him for the paramedics to do their thing, even held him still while a sedative was administered. But although he was bruised up and there was a narrow cut on the front of his neck, physically he didn't seem to be in any immediate danger, and trying to touch him had sent him into hysterics.

Morgan gave his most reassuring smile. "I'm Derek."

The boy looked at him uncertainly. "I'm Kurt. Are you a cop?"

"I am indeed, and I'm very glad you're OK, Kurt."

Kurt's eyes were distant. "Am I?"

Morgan hoped he wasn't slipping back into shock. "I can help you with your hands there."

Kurt looked down at his hands like he'd forgotten they were tied. He hesitated, then held them out to Morgan, who elected to work the knots loose rather than cut them with a knife. When his hands were free Kurt snatched them back and wrapped them around his middle.

"Are you cold?" Morgan shook open a plastic space blanket the EMTs had brought in and offered it. After a moment, Kurt's hand darted out to grab it. Although he wrapped it around himself, his shivering increased.

Morgan asked, "Do you think you can stand up?" Kurt looked at him blankly. "I can help you stand up, but I'll need to touch you, OK?" Still nothing. Morgan stood and took hold of Kurt's arms through the blanket. Kurt didn't struggle, but he started hyperventilating again and then went limp. Morgan caught him before he could hit the floor and called for a stretcher.

There was a flurry of activity as always, and a million things to do. Morgan followed the stretcher out and saw the kid onto an ambulance. Then he sighed, turned, and went back into the house.

Crime scenes told stories. There was the unfinished storm cellar, not much more than warped boards for stairs, and the bloodstains. There wasn't even a light; all the better for Karofsky when he pretended the women he killed were someone else. The fireplace upstairs smelled like burnt hair. There was a sub sandwich on the floor just inside the front door, still neatly wrapped in paper.

The bedroom and adjacent bath told a story too, albeit an incomplete one. Kurt Hummel's ripped clothes in the bathroom. David Karofsky's, tossed carelessly on the floor by the bed. Kurt's shoes. The bed; the carving knife, the blood near the headboard, the dried semen in the middle.

"Will he live?" Morgan asked Reid. While Morgan focused on the victim, Reid had focused on the unsub and called the others in. Morgan had wondered if the unsub would fixate on Reid, Reid with his lanky, pale features. But Karofsky hadn't spared Reid a second glance; he already had what he wanted.

Reid shrugged. The paramedics worked just as hard to save a killer as an innocent. That was the nature of their job.

"I hope he doesn't," Morgan said. He'd thought it before. It would put Kurt Hummel through more, if Karofsky lived and there was any kind of trial. There was semen on the sheets.

Reid's eyes were sympathetic. "I'll call the Karofskys. Why don't you call Mr. Hummel and tell him we found his son, and that he's alive." Because they'd gone straight to the Karofsky house in Lima, Morgan hadn't met or spoken to the man. This was a phone call he hardly ever got to make.

David Karofsky was in a coma. If he ever answered questions about his crimes, or paid for them, it wouldn't be anytime soon. There was an abundance of physical evidence against him, though. If it was any consolation, the families of his victims would have that closure.

Blaine Anderson was also in a coma (albeit a medically induced one) while his doctors waited for the swelling in his brain to reduce. His latest MRI results were encouraging; the doctors seemed very optimistic, at any rate. Morgan met his father—his mother was out getting them food, it seemed. The father seemed like a stereotypical businessman, very buttoned down, hair slicked back with care. Except a few strands had fallen loose and his shirt was rumbled. After shaking Morgan's hand, the first thing he said was, "Tell me it's not because he's gay."

Morgan didn't pause. "It's not because he's gay."

Mr. Anderson's face crumpled. "Are you saying that to comfort me?"

"I'm saying it because it's true."

Morgan watched Mr. Anderson watch his son. "I don't know how to protect him," the man admitted. "I want to forbid him from ever seeing Kurt Hummel again. I want to take him out of this state, out of this country even. Maybe Paris. But no, there are crazies there too. Maybe Canada. Manitoba. Saskatchewan."

Morgan said nothing, just waited.

Anderson snorted and said ruefully, "And then he'd be attacked by a grizzly bear, I suppose." His hand ghosted over his son's curls. "Actually," he said, "I just want him to open his eyes." He looked at Morgan with pain and guilt and hope in his dark eyes. "That's really the only thing I want."

Morgan briefly met Blaine Anderson's brother, too, a vaguely-familiar man who said with apparent seriousness that he'd played an FBI Agent in an independent film once. Morgan listened a little while to his nervous chatter, then went to find Kurt's room.

Detective Callahan and others would interview him extensively. That wouldn't be Morgan's role. Once the profile was complete, and certainly once the unsub was found, the BAU's work was done. They were leaving that night.

The nurse said Mr. Hummel was down at the Columbus police station, and Morgan imagined he was threatening the department in general for dismissing his son's call to the hotline. He still hadn't met the man in person, but Burt Hummel was quickly getting a reputation among the LEOs for his advocacy for his son. "Go on in," the nurse said. "He's watching a musical."

Mogan listened at the door for a moment. He wasn't exactly a musical kind of guy, so while he had the sense it was a famous musical, he wasn't familiar with it. A man in military garb was singing. "You've got to be taught/to hate and fear. /You've got to be taught/from year to year. /It's got to be drummed/in your dear little ear. /You've got to be carefully taught."

Morgan cleared his throat as the next verse started, and Kurt Hummel turned slowly to look. There was a flash of recognition when he saw Morgan, and he fumbled to pause the television.

"I don't know if you remember me," Morgan began.

"Derek," Kurt said softly. "You were—there."

"I was," Morgan agreed. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm great," Kurt said, voice flat. "Why wouldn't I be? I barely have a scratch on me."

Morgan raised his eyebrows. "That's not a cast on your leg?" He sat down on the chair next to Kurt's bed. He didn't mention the large hickey or the thin scratch on Kurt's neck. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, but it was easy to see.

Kurt shot him a reproachful look. "A hairline fracture, which I did to myself, freaking out."

"Just because you're not injured much doesn't mean you're not hurt," Morgan said.

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "What's that supposed to mean?" He didn't wait for an answer. "He tortured and killed women. He put Blaine in a coma. What he did to me… it's nothing, next to that."

"That's why I wanted to talk to you," Morgan said. "I wanted to tell you—it's not a competition for "who got hurt the worst". You can't compare what you went through to what anyone else went through. So he didn't stab you, fine. He still abducted you, held you against your will, assaulted you." As he spoke, Kurt shook his head as if in denial.

"He didn't rape me," Kurt said quickly, eyes flicking towards Morgan and then down at his hands. "I mean—I don't know if they told you that. I know what it must have looked like, in There."

"He might not have penetrated you, but he did rape you," Morgan said. "I think you know that too."

Kurt took a moment to reply. "I don't want to be a victim," he finally said.

"I've read your file, Kid. You're no victim, you're a survivor."

"I want to be famous, but for Broadway or fashion. For being the best at what I do. Not for this."

There wasn't a lot Morgan could say in response to that. Being under 18 would protect Kurt from the media a little, but it was a national story. His name was out there now. He said, "You will be known for those things. This will be a footnote, and your fans will only be more impressed by you."

"You don't know that."

"I do know that. You know Lila Archer?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "The Golden Globe winner? The one in every big movie this summer? Yes, I know who Lila Archer is."

"Just as she was starting to get big, she had a stalker. It got scary and violent, too, though she was attacked in her own house, not taken somewhere. It gets mentioned sometimes, but she's not known for that."

They sat in silence for a while. Morgan wondered if Reid ever talked to Lila these days, and if she'd be willing to talk to Kurt about getting past this. It would be fair if she didn't want to. The TV started playing again, the "pause" having timed out, and Kurt hit it again. Finally, without looking at Morgan he said, "I feel like it's all my fault. Those women. Blaine. …me. He wouldn't have… done any of that, if it hadn't been for me."

Morgan said levelly, "It was about you, but it wasn't because of you. And if it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. I know that's small consolation, but that's the way stalkers work, Kurt. There's no one to blame but Karofsky himself." Kurt flinched at the name, and Morgan pretended not to notice.

After a minute, Kurt said, "The media is blaming homophobia. They say if He hadn't thought being gay was the worst thing in the world, it never would have gotten to where it did. He would have just… asked me out, or something."

Morgan remembered the room, how frightened Karofsky was. "Everyone will know you're gay," he'd said, and Karofsky had tried to kill himself. He thought about the school Kurt had been forced to leave because the school board hadn't taken Karofsky's threat seriously, how the LEOs had laughed about crazy tips like a gay boy calling in.

"It probably played a role," Morgan acknowledged. "But plenty of straight stalkers get dangerous, too. It's easy to talk in hypotheticals."

"I can't get it out of my head," Kurt said. "If I think it had a lot to do with what happened, am I letting… Him… off the hook? …I keep listening to this song, over and over. Do you know South Pacific?

"I know it's an older musical, pretty famous. Not a lot I guess. Didn't they make a movie from it a few years ago?"

"They've made a few," Kurt said. "This is the 1958 one. But the stage play is almost a decade older. It's heavily about racial prejudice. Whether it's something we're born with, or something society teaches us."

Reid would know all about this, Morgan knew. He wasn't sure whether Reid actually liked musicals, but he'd know about them either way. Morgan wouldn't trade places with him for the world; the Karofskys had wanted to speak with him. So Morgan said, "That sounds pretty radical for the '40s."

Kurt smiled thinly. "Oh, it was. The critics said it was indecent and pro-Communist, and a that a song justifying interracial marriage was a threat to "the American way of life." But the authors said they wouldn't change their play, even if that message made it fail."

"It sounds like something worth listening too then," Morgan said honestly. "I'd like to hear it."

He gave Kurt his card, invited him to call anytime, to keep in touch. But only if he wanted to.

Burt Hummel got back to the hospital as Morgan was leaving. Hummel was a solid, strong bear of a man, and thinking of the stories he'd heard over the last day, Morgan felt better about Kurt's chances.

"Thank you," Burt told him with sincere emotion. "Anything I can ever do for you or yours, you've got it."

"You have a fine son," Morgan told him. "Don't let this get him thinking otherwise."

When Burt said, "I won't," Morgan believed him.

A swarm of teenagers crowded around the hotel lobby, bearing balloons and toy animals and flowers and—a karaoke machine? As he skirted the group he heard snippets of their conversations, including Kurt's name.

On the plane ride home, he thought about the trust with which Kurt had looked at him, so different from most assault victims, who couldn't see past Morgan's gender. He thought about what it said about the country when someone would rather be dead than gay, or kill than be gay. He thought about his playful banter with Penelope, the casual way they flirted without worry.

He knew the case had resolved about as well as a serial case ever could, and he felt hopeful that Kurt would be OK, and on Broadway soon enough. The final verse of the song had stuck in his head, and as he looked out the window at the patchwork fields below, he thought of the words again.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
before you are six or seven or eight,
to hate all the people your relatives hate,
you've got to be carefully taught.

(The End)

I had to end with a quote, in true CM fashion; South Pacific is by Rodgers and Hammerstein, based on the (long, but excellent) novel by James Michener. And although it's not why I chose the song, Matthew Morrison (Mr. Schue on Glee) has played Lt. Cable (the singer of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught"). Small world, huh?

I do have a head canon about what happened with Kurt, Blaine and Dave in the end, but I wanted to leave the story open-ended, partly because that's the nature of a Criminal Minds episode, and partly because it would have seemed too "neat" to tie up every loose thread so quickly.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the story. I've appreciated the alerts and favorites, and especially your kind reviews.