Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

Simple birthdays

Both looked out at the passing scenery, Morgan unable to help but smile at the memory of Darling's 21st

He was juggling his new job on the force, finishing law school and going through a messy breakup with his girlfriend at the time and had almost completely forgotten about Darling's birthday until he got an alert for it the morning of on his phone, freaking out and dropping everything without second thought to get a long flight back to see her on Christmas eve- which of course meant it took twice as long to get back with the holiday travellers...

He expected to turn up to her house when he arrived at 10pm and find her out at a club or celebrating with her brothers, but when he used his spare key to get in she was sat on the sofa watching a murder documentary and drinking wine straight from the bottle.

"Well this sure is one hell of a party" Morgan joked from the door to the living room, Darling turning with startled surprise, feeling a beaming smile coming to her face when she saw it was him.

"Derek!?" She exclaimed, dropping her empty wine bottle, jumping over the back of the sofa and immediately running into a hug with him as he dropped his bags down.

"Woah- I see the murder docs give you a lot of energy" he chuckled, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her up into a hug that he couldn't help cherishing.

"What are you doing here?" She tilted her head up at him in the embrace.

"Well I thought it was your birthday but clearly I got that mixed up with the sad wine drinking and dismembered body tv marathon day" he joked, gesturing at the gory tv show which made her laugh up at him.

"It's the event of the century."

"Clearly" he chuckled as they stepped back from the hug that they both desperately missed, "so why are you spending you 21st watching murder films and drinking cheap red wine then?"

"Just living the youthful dream- do you want a drink?" She laughed, rolling over the back of her sofa onto it and grabbing the bottle, frowning when she realised it was empty.

"Seriously though, why aren't you out on the town or at least at a bar or something? It's your 21st Darl, it's a special one" he walked round, lifting her legs slightly to sit down and placing them to rest on his knees like usual.

"I was at work all day and then had to look after Addie so it's just another day for me, nothing special about it" she shrugged before smiling over at him, "but it is really nice that you came back, you didn't have to do that."

Morgan couldn't help his warm smile at her, "of course I did- you literally hitchhiked across multiple states and broke into my house for my last birthday, the least I could do is come back and see you."

"That wasn't my fault that I broke into your house, I forgot security alarms were a thing" she chuckled.

"Yeah and my security alarm called the police on you as you were setting up your 'decorations' in my living room- I still can remember your face when I came back to to find you surrounded by police officers with a piñata on your lap and bright orange wig on your head."

"I'm nothing if not classy" she chuckled before her phone chimed from the other room, rolling her eyes and ignoring it.

"You're not going to get that?"

"Nope" she replied uncharacteristically simply, grabbing a handful of popcorn.

Morgan studied her for a minute; something was wrong- or multiple things were, either way, he couldn't let this be how she spent her birthday.