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“When was the last time you actually cooked?”
Spencer makes a small, noncommittal noise from the back of his throat, staring at the pattern of the wooden table.
Hotch fixes him with a stern glance from where he stands alongside the open, empty fridge.
“Weeks, I think - I don’t know,” he answers honestly.
“Well,” Hotch’s brow furrows more, if possible. “I understand the state you’re in at the moment, Reid, but you need to be taking care of yourself.”
Spencer says nothing in response, he’s learnt by now that arguing away his reluctance for - well, anything - does no good. Instead, he opts to watch his boss rifling through cupboards to find anything that will help him make some semblance of a meal.
Eventually Hotch seems to settle for a type of noodle dish that he must have found the right ingredients for. Clooney whines at the sound of the stovetop starting up, and Spencer reaches down past his knees to scratch the dog’s head until he settles once more beneath the table.
“You know,” Hotch starts, “after Haley…” he trails off, watching the empty, shut-down expression in his subordinate’s eyes and swallowing the remainder of his sentence before Spencer has a chance to do it for him. He cooks the rest of the meal - if you could even call it that - without words.
Spencer continues sluggishly tracing the wood with one finger as a bowl is placed in front of him and Hotch takes the seat at the opposite end of the table. There’s a wicker basket sat on the bench behind Spencer’s head, containing a few stale muffins and a packet of mini doughnuts that were no doubt delivered on Garcia’s routine Thursday evening visit.
Reid must have caught his eye movement as he pushed his noodles around inside the bowl, because Hotch is caught with a gaunt, hollow expression that makes his throat raw in sympathy for the younger agent.
“We’re doing everything we can,” he placates, as he has done for the past three months.
“You and I both know that Strauss is at the end of her rope by now,” Reid answers, fork scraping against the edges of his bowl. “The FBI runs out of resources at some point, and the higher-ups aren’t going to keep letting us waste them if we keep declining cases to favour one of our own.”
“ ‘Waste’ is the wrong word to use here, Reid.”
Reid looks down into his dinner, avoiding as much eye contact as he can. Hotch can see him white knuckling his utensil shakily. Clooney huffs audibly from beneath the table.
The two of them finish their meals in silence.
“I look forward to seeing you next Saturday,” Hotch says as he pulls on his jacket. “Don’t feel as though you aren’t welcome at the office.”
Spencer nods tiredly, fiddling with the chain of the front door as Hotch shares a look of worry, or pity, he can’t quite tell.
----
Unsurprisingly enough, Reid’s state has declined since Hotch’s last visit. The genius is in sweatpants and an oddly familiar Northwestern University sweatshirt with Clooney sniffing around his slippers as he steps aside to let Hotch past the door.
Hotch places a bag of groceries on the counter, explaining the latest case the team had been given the opportunity to take as Spencer curls himself up into an armchair.
Looking around subtly, Hotch can see the evidence of both JJ and Emily’s visits from the past week. At this point, Hotch wouldn’t be surprised if the remainder of their team were the only thing keeping Spencer on his feet as everything else fractured around him.
He sighs, observing Reid’s demeanour. His eyes are rimmed red, and beneath those are dark, sleepless rings. His clothing is wrinkled from days of sitting aimlessly, and his hair is continuing to grow out, unbrushed. Clooney’s food and water are topped up, though the presence of food for Reid himself is still underwhelming.
“Come back to the office,” he suggests over their dinner - salad with eggs, toast, and bacon this time.
Reid’s shoulders stiffen slightly, and he stares deep into his meal, as though it could deflect Hotch’s worry on his behalf. Eventually, he shakes his head, waving one hand weakly as he forms a slow response.
“I - I don’t really want to be... I don’t want to see his desk or have to -” Spencer pauses, letting out a long breath before continuing. “I don’t want to have to fake stability five days a week,” he settles on.
Hotch nods in understanding, but Reid isn’t one to not notice the quiet look of defeat in his superior’s eyes. “I just want…”
“I know,” Hotch interrupts, not unkindly. “We all do, Reid.”
“I just wanna know . I hate this.” Reid gestures around the room, the two-seater couch with cold cushions, the unused kitchen, Clooney’s whines, the empty home.
“I get it.” Hotch stands, taking Reid’s half-eaten plate to the sink.
Spencer stares vacantly into the living room, the absent sound of the tap running fading out of focus.
Warm, calloused hands, running through his hair. The sound of the sport channel on TV muffled with the ear he has pressed against a firm, familiar chest.
“What happened last time we fell asleep on the couch like this again? I can’t remember.”
“You complained all day at work about a stiff back,” he remembers answering, the corner of his lips turning upward.
“Mmh, sounds about right.” The voice sent vibrations through the side of his face as he lay still and content, tangled limb-to-limb.
Spencer blinks numbly, hardly registering the watery shapes of the living room disfiguring themselves through his wet eyes. He can still hear Hotch pottering about in his kitchen, placing groceries away and discarding old mail.
“Here, it’ll help you sleep.”
Spencer jolts at the sudden closeness, looking up as Hotch passes with a small bag of garbage comprised mainly of coffee filters and unread mail. He looks back to the table where Hotch has left a banana.
He nods in thanks, prodding at the fruit as Hotch makes his way out for the garbage.
Part of him wants to feel angry that he can’t find the strength to run through the most basic functions of taking care of himself - but all he comes up with every time he tries is just… anguish, and the painfully well-known ache of loneliness he had spent most of his years experiencing as he grew up.
Things were supposed to be different now, with the team - his family, his partner - nothing was supposed to hurt him this much anymore.
He shivers as the front door blows closed from the wind, making Clooney bark and skitter across the kitchen tile, through the living room, and into the entry.
He sighs, resigning himself to make time to take said companion on a walk again once Hotch had left for the evening. Except Clooney was still yapping away at the front door.
“It’s Hotch,” he points out, rather uselessly. “Look,” he says as he pushes the front door open, Clooney shoving his way past him and into the yard.
----
Hotch gathers the bag from the garbage bin in Reid’s kitchen, tying it off and pulling a piece of fruit from the round of shopping he had done for the younger agent and placing it on the table in front of him.
“Here, it’ll help you sleep,” he says. He has no real clue if bananas were actually proven to help sleep, but it was a common enough saying that he felt confident parroting it back to Reid if it meant his undereye bags would start to fade.
Reid jumps slightly at the interruption, tearing his head away from the living room and focusing hard on the fruit, attempting to hide his wet eyes from Hotch.
Hotch pretends not to notice as he makes his way outside.
The wind outside slams the door shut before he can register anything else, and his hackles immediately rise as movement catches his attention.
He drops the bag, hand instinctively lowering to his belt as though he still carried his gun with him at six on a Saturday evening.
Hotch distantly hears barking from behind the door, but all he finds himself focusing on is the blood .
Derek Morgan - covered in blood, but Derek Morgan all the same - limps unsteadily up the walkway to his own front door.
“Shit -” Hotch starts, darting forward and gripping the man’s forearms.
Morgan’s face is blank and pallid, his temple is slowly tracking blood down the left side of his face, and his right cheek is grazed, just below the eye. He has no shoes on, in fact all he seems to have on him is a beaten, stained, cotton shirt, and rust-coloured jeans, marred by even more blood than his face.
Whether all the blood covering the man was his own or not seemed to be a moot-point, considering the speed at which Morgan drops to the ground as soon as Hotch makes contact.
“Morgan - Morgan? Damnit, Derek - fuck!”
Hotch yanks his phone from his own pocket, laying it to the side of his colleague after haphazardly dialling the emergency line, smearing blood across the screen as he did.
“Derek, stay with me,” Hotch orders, touching two fingers to the man’s jaw and tilting his chin, surveying his eyes which roll back into his head and close in the space of a few seconds.
Panic grips at his chest, its claws digging into his lungs as he runs his hands across his subordinates chest, looking for a wound site to tend to.
The barking around them grows considerably louder, and his phone clicks as his emergency call is answered. He immediately talks over the operator to give the address and best description of the situation as he can, wiping one bloody hand across his pants as he listens to the estimate of the ambulance’s arrival.
Beside him, Clooney is digging Morgan’s shoulder, making noises of distress and barking in intervals.
Hotch hears rushed breathing drop to the opposite side of him and Clooney, and glances up to see Reid’s pale face and shaky hands running along the length of Morgan’s arm, checking for a pulse and murmuring sentences that he couldn’t quite make out. He catches disjointed bits and pieces of what is being said, but hardly any of it is coherent.
“God - where… how - Hotch, I’m…”
He reaches an arm out as Spencer lays two trembling hands on both of Morgan’s cheeks to brace the younger agent.
Sirens pierce the eerie quiet of the neighbourhood around them, matching Reid’s panicky breathing.
By the time the ambulance pulls into the driveway, there are enough tears rolling down Spencer’s face to perfectly reflect the blue and red lights.
“Go with him,” Hotch directs, despite hardly needing to.
He herds Clooney inside, checking his food and water will last for the remainder of the night before locking the front door and hightailing his way to the hospital behind the ambulance from the sound of its sirens.
----
The first thing he knew was white.
A strong overload of it, too.
His eyes burned and he was vaguely aware of his fists clenching with the pain of the fluorescent lights boring holes into his skull.
He frowned, eyes still half closed, a small groan escaping him.
“ Morgan .”
He gives himself a moment to adjust to the light, finally finding solace in a head of black hair to the side of his bed, which he was only now registering.
His lips peeled apart painfully when he went to speak. His gums felt like cotton.
“Here,” his boss said simply.
A paper cup was placed in his hand, and he noted that Hotch kept a grip on it until he seemed sure Derek was able to lift the cup without dousing himself.
“Nurse said you need fluids either way.”
He squinted at the comment, doing an upper-body-check, and seeing the IV in his arm as an explanation. He could feel the familiar tug of stitches and butterfly bandages across his face, and the rest of his body was - thankfully - dulled by the pain medication he was no doubt pumped full of.
There was a weight encircling his waist, and he prayed that when he looked down it wouldn’t be part of a cast. He’d had more than his fair share of experience with them throughout his years of football.
But when he did spare a glance, he was met with a curly mess he knew so intimately he could identify every section that ruffled in sleep, that dried at an odd angle after a shower.
“ Spence ,” he murmurs, more to himself than the man slumped across his hospital bed.
Spencer’s face is tilted away from him, nose tucked away in the crook of his hip, one arm splayed across his waist and gently resting against his free hand.
He lets his eyes linger for several moments on the sleeping genius before looking back up to Hotch and finally relieving the dried, scratchy mess of his throat with the water cup.
“What do you last remember, Derek?” Hotch asks bluntly. Despite the tone, he knows his boss’ use of his first name says enough on its own.
“Jumpin’ straight into it, I see,” he croaks, smirking weakly at the man in the chair beside Spencer’s.
“You showed up at your own home - dehydrated and covered in bruises, I might add - after three months of being an active missing persons case.” While Hotch’s words might have seemed accusatory to anyone else, Derek bites back a retort and instead chooses to focus on the fact that his boss - his teammate - has always been prone to clamping down on his severity when worry and guilt are dragged into the picture.
“I’m okay,” Derek starts. “I just - I’m - I don’t know,” he fails to say clearly. His head is nauseatingly empty. A dark spot in his mind and memory.
Hotch raises a brow cynically, eyes flicking towards Spencer for a moment, surveying him carefully.
“I don’t remember anything,” Derek admits after a moment occupied only by quiet.
“The last thing you can,” Hotch prompts, his expression somewhat softer now.
Derek pauses for a long while, choosing to rub his nails against the bedspread in an attempt to escape the noticeable headache he has building.
“ Home ,” he answers eventually. “Just…” he falters, “wandering the street, trying to find home.”
Derek observes the look in Hotch’s expression, unable to deconstruct it.
“I was worried , man,” he adds, voice cracking with emotion. “I didn’t know where I was, or who - or what - was… I didn’t know anything. I still don’t know anything.”
Derek flips his palm, interlocking his fingers with Spencer’s, looking at his back rise and fall with the rhythmic motions of sleep. “All I knew was worry, and all I wanted was to find my way home to him - to everyone . Those are the only things I can remember; I swear.”
“I don’t doubt you, Morgan,” Hotch promises. “I can get everyone here in under an hour,” he says. “We were just waiting for you to wake up, I needed to know your…” Hotch glances to the ceiling, looking for the right words. “Your current state,” he settles on.
Derek nods, not disputing the judgement. He doesn’t gesture for Hotch to make the call, instead choosing to raise his chin to speak.
“You said it’s been three months?” He asks despondently, tiredly, as though the realisation of his lost time had only just caught up to him.
Hotch answers with a tightly drawn grimace.
“How’s he holding up?” Derek presses.
The both of them redirect their gaze to Spencer.
“Honestly?”
Morgan shoots Hotch a look which clearly says, as if I would ever ask otherwise .
Hotch sighs. “He hasn’t been.” Guilt mars Derek’s features, and his fingers tighten against Spencer’s. “He’s been a wreck,” Hotch continues, against his better judgement.
Spencer twitches, and Derek immediately redirects his attention back to him as he rouses slowly.
Hotch stands from his seat, “I’ll contact the others,” he says evenly before turning on one heel and stepping outside of the room.
Derek keeps his hand in Spencer’s, even as he wakes.
“ Der ?” He asks softly, turning his head against the sheets and perking up in his chair.
His eyes are red, and his fingers tighten against Derek’s as he comes to.
He looks about as wrecked as Hotch had implied.
“Hey, I’m here.”
Spencer chews the inside of his cheek and stares down at his lap.
“I thought… I thought you left .”
“You know I’d never do that.” Derek frowns, circling his fingers around Spencer’s wrist and guiding him towards the head of the hospital bed. He can see Spencer surveying his stitches and bandages, his eyes softening in worry.
“You went to the gym and - and you just - you never came home,” his voice cracks, and he ducks his chin, gingerly burying his face into the crook of Derek’s neck. “I thought you were gone ,” he whispers.
Derek lifts his free arm, tucking it around Spencer’s back and holding him close.
“I would never do that to you.”
The familiar smell of Spencer’s hair, and the way he has the kid buried beneath his chin makes Derek pull him closer, his eyes burning. He aches for the time he lost, for the turmoil he’s caused, and most of all, for the things he doesn’t know.
“Where were you?” Spencer asks, voice muffled against Derek’s chest.
Derek squeezes his eyes shut, inhaling sharply, loosening his posture.
“I don’t know,” he repeats, words hoarse and throat dry. “All I know is that I’m home, and you’re here. We’re okay .”