Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

A different kind of anger

That feeling first came when she was 10 and her dad locked her out of the house for accidentally burning his dinner and she had to sleep on the grass all night when he got drunk.

It came again when she was 16 and she had hid under the house's porch from him when he threatened to kill her if she didn't go into his room, spending the rest of the night led in the mud and grass in the cold of the woods nearby.

And then every other week for years she would find herself sleeping a spot in that woods, right near the stream next to a giant tree when her dad would get back from long trucking trips and drink more than usual, it felt safer for her to sleep in a woods where anyone could find her compared to her bedroom where he could find her.

She hated it out there.

She couldn't see the stars like people talked about when sleeping outside through the low hanging branches, she could just feel the cold dirt tangling in her hair, the bugs she hated crawling on her as she wiggled until the sun rose.

And then one day she went there before her birthday to hide from her dad who would get worse during the holidays and the spot was gone, replaced with a tree house that she didn't realise until he showed her the next day that was built by Morgan, unknowingly building it on that spot where she spent so many nights crying and hiding alone with the dirt waiting for it to grow over and bury her.

But then she wasn't alone there anymore, she wasn't on the ground.

She could see stars now that the treehouse was higher off the ground, she couldn't feel the cold ground anymore, she didn't feel like she was hiding when she was there.

She felt free.

She felt safe.

She felt like she was home.

But not her 'home', because her 'home' wasn't safe, it wasn't free.

Kids in her class would talk about going home, to their families, to their beds with such comfort to their face.

She never had that.

Not until that treehouse; until Morgan.

She couldn't think about that now as she tried to get comfortable on the ground outside the lodge in the freezing winds, Morgan telling Hotch to go back to bed and that he would sort it out as he rolled his eyes and crouched down to the floor next to Darling.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to bed" she didn't turn to look at him.

"You're being ridiculous."

She ignored him and just wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

"Just go back to bed, I'll tell Luke he can bunk with Reid and I'll-"

"I don't need your help" she dismissed.

"You're so god damn stubborn" he mumbled to himself, the cold and frustration getting to him as much as the lack of sleep.

"Go to bed then, I didn't ask you to come out here" she dismissed again.

"You'll freeze out here."

"I'm not the one without a shirt, if anything your nipples will be the ones to freeze to death" she pointed out the fact that he was just in his pyjama bottoms, a fact that the flutters in her stomach wouldn't let her forget.

"Stop joking around and just go back to bed" Morgan rolled his eyes.

"StOp jOkInG aRoNnD aNd JuSt Go BaCk To BeD" she repeated, mocking in a high pitched whiney voice, still not looking at him "that's what you sound like."