Darling was right, Morgan did not like this plan at all.
But as he sat on the edge of the forest floor watching the church burn to the ground with the team's sirens growing in the background, he couldn't fault that it was a good plan.
One that started with them agreeing to Jimbo's request for Morgan to 'take her...'
"What are you doing Darl? What's the real plan here?" Morgan whispered down to her as they were led to the small back room by the two brothers who were snickering and giggling to each other.
"Trust me and just do what I said to do" she whispered back.
"I don't like the sound of this-"
"Shush your mush, whenever have I given us a bad plan?"
"Where do I even start?" Morgan couldn't help his quiet laughter, "what about the time you made us pretend to be fire fighters to get out of history when neither of us studied for the test?"
"I didn't make us pretend to be them, I just staged a fake fire and happened to find two fire fighter costumes in the theatre department" she chuckled, "and it worked didn't it?"
"Yeah until we were forced onto the fire engine when they left and ended up hiding in the fire station for four hours" Morgan pointed out with amusement that was cut short by the two brother's opening the door for them to a room full of coffins.
"Wow... how romantic?" Darling almost shivered at the sight.
"Dad will come check on you in 10 minutes, get started with her" one of them said as they left, sighing at Darling over his shoulder.
"I told you we should have just killed that guy, that could be us in there with her" he spoke to his brother as they were leaving.
Darling felt Morgan's rage through the tension in his arm next to her, looking up at the death stare he had towards the two brothers as the door closed behind them.
"Let's get started, we don't have time to pout" Darling nudged his arm and started looking around for the stuff she needed to set her plan into motion, grabbing multiple things from the dust ridden room and running over to the old furnace, turning it on just slightly and praying it heated up just as much as the one in her old church.
"What do we need?" Morgan turned to her, watching as she paced around the room and tried to figure out that question for herself, climbing the coffins and reaching the bars on the window to start the next part of her plan- but it seemed they had run out of time.
Jimbo walked into the room faster than they had expected, both pausing and looking back over their shoulders at him.
"Well... this is awkward" Darling spoke into the tension as Jimbo stared at them with a sense of deep rage before turning calmly and locking the door behind him.
"I thought you two said you would behave if we gave you privacy, tut, tut, tut" he shook his head.
"I don't know how you do it Jimmy, but most of the time it takes longer than 5 minutes for people to have sex" Darling couldn't help her mocking.
She watched as Jimbo's eye twitched with a burning hatred for her that opposed his sinister smirk.
"I guess I'll just have to teach you two how to behave- starting with you young lady" his hands went to his belt and Darling felt the fear racing through her but stood calmly.
Morgan on the other hand, was anything but calm.
The anger racing through him was threatening to come out and launch at Jimbo but Darling's hand placed on his shoulder.
"Next part of the plan, just trust me and don't cause a scene- go along with what he says" she whispered.
"Darling tell me the plan-"
Morgan was interrupted by Jimbo placing his belt in Morgan's hand.
"Punish her" he demanded.
"Excuse me?"
"Hit her, punish her for disobeying us."
"Us?" Morgan quizzed.
"Us men."
"Right..." Morgan nodded with disgusted confusion, replaying Darling's 'just trust me' in his head to stop himself taking out all his anger at Jimbo.
"So you want me to... hit her with this?" Morgan held the belt awkwardly.
"Punish her as you see fit" Jimbo stepped back to observe as if it was a test of sorts.
"Okay... so I guess I'll just, uh" Morgan turned to Darling who had hopped off the coffins and was watching Jimbo with a burning rage behind her eyes.
This is the game you want to play? You have no idea how well I know this game, I lived this game, let's play buddy.
She turned to Morgan, giving him a 'it's okay, trust me' look.
"I... I can't" Morgan shook his head with apologetic eyes at her, "Darling I'm sorry, I can't hurt you, I won't."
"For god sakes" she mumbled to herself before nodding with a new attempt of a plan and smiling up at him, "I know Derek, it's okay, it's going to be okay."
"What?" Morgan gave her a confused look before she suddenly grabbed the belt off him and hit her own arm at a rapid speed so intensely that the mark was immediately there and already bruising.
"Fuck! Darling what are you doing?!" Morgan exclaimed, going to grab it off her but she twisted under his arm, keeping eye contact with Jimbo the whole time as she hit her arm over and over again.
"You're doing it wrong" he scolded, "the husband is the one to punish."
"Then punish me" she held out the belt with a prompting look, "go on Jimmy, we both know this is really what you want- isn't it?"
He watched her for a moment before she stepped closer to him.
"Come on, there's no way your wife would have picked this dress- or not given her kids whatever, or whoever, they wanted."
"Watch how you talk about my family girl."
"Or what?" She tilted her head in an antagonising way, clocking the keys on his hip and coming up with the rest of the plan on the fly as she walked closer to him.
"Will you punish me Jimbo? In god's house, really? That's not very holy of you. What will you do to me? What do you want to do to me?" Her voice was sultry in an almost velvet type of way that Morgan was intoxicated by for a moment before he saw her walking closer to Jimbo until she was right in front of him.
"I will hurt you in the way god intended girls like you to be hurt" Jimbo spoke, trying to hide his breathlessness from her charm.
Darling forced a small smile in the corner of her lips, her hands tracing up his thighs to his hips as she stood on her tip toes and whispered in his ear, "and in what part of the bible does it say that I wouldn't enjoy that?"
Her planned flirting distraction was cut short by Morgan yanking her back from Jimbo just as she tried to grab the keys from his hip, so close to getting them that they fell on the floor and revealed her whole plan as she stumbled back into a furious Morgan.
"What the hell are you doing?!" He yelled at her before he saw the keys on the floor and then Jimbo's still red face as he too realised what Darling was trying to do.
"You know dear, you would go further in life with a real brain in that empty head of yours" he walked closer to Morgan and Darling who walked back from him, Morgan pushing Darling behind him but she ducked under his arm and launched herself to the right at the slowly heating up giant old furnace where the iron fire poker sat.
Just as she jumped for it, Jimbo grabbed her hair and sent them both flying onto the floor.
"Get the poker!" She screamed at Morgan through the pain of being dragged back.
"The what?!" Morgan's instinct was to grab Jimbo but Darling was yelling at him to get the poker and keys.
Before he could get there, Jimbo yanked Darling and threw her at Morgan, both of them stumbling over into the main door as Jimbo grabbed the poker, smirking at Darling and Morgan who were half on top of each other staring in fake fear- this was the part of the plan he really didn't like and the part where she stopped telling him what would happen next in the already more than improvised plan.
"The power of god will assist me, I will save his children by hurting them, by teaching them and hanging their bodies for the other sluts to learn!" He hurled his words at Darling who just watched him and hid behind Morgan's arm which he assumed was because she was understandably scared, assuming all her plans were ruined now- that was until he heard her whispers in his ear as Jimbo ranted on and on about his 'godly duties.'
"Take the keys that I just put in your pocket; and when I say so, you need to open the door and run as fast as you can sugar."
"What?" He tried to whisper back but her gaze was focused forward on Jimbo as she pushed herself to her feet.
"You want to know something about us sluts?" She took off her jacket and pulled out the shot gun shell she had kept this whole time, holding it up and tilting her head at him, "we always have know how to deal with dirtbags like you."
"How dare you-"
"Now Derek!" Darling yelled, jumping out of the way as Morgan stood up and quickly unlocked the door, running just like she told him to but unable to stop himself from looking over his shoulder to see what she was doing- halting in his steps when he saw her slam the door, trapping her with Jimbo.
"Darling?!" He turned and ran back to the door, slamming on it for a while as he heard a commotion inside and going to kick it down- but not before it blew open.
The flames sent Morgan flying backwards, as did Darling jumping out of the door into him.
"Run! Run! Put those damn long legs to use and run!" She grabbed his arm and stumbled to her feet, rambling through a smoky cough.
"Jesus Christ-" He stumbled after her, noticing the fresh cuts and burn marks down her back.
"Don't look back, keep running! We don't have much time!" She called out to him as they made it to the main part of the chapel, pausing when she saw Betty and the two men stood up and alerted by the sound of the small explosion which was only the beginning of what Darling had set up with a trail of gun powder left behind.
"What is happening?!" Betty exclaimed before screaming when a burnt figure came running in; Jimbo.
Morgan stared in horror at the scolding burn marks down his face, half his body and the poker stick jammed through his chest.
"What did you do!?" Betty screamed at Darling as Jimbo fell to the floor, flailing in pain and begging for help.
"Run Derek!" Darling pushed him towards the door.
"G-get her!" Betty demanded to her equally as shocked sons who were staring at their dying father, "now!"
Darling tripped on the leg of one of the 6 dead men in the aisles as she tried to run after Morgan who had made it halfway out of the church doors, looking back to check on Darling and spotting her fall with the brothers closing in on her.
"Get away from her!" Suddenly he had a vase from the side of one of the pews in his hand, smashing it across one his head with an intense strength just as he tried to grab Darling.
"Holy shit-" she exclaimed as the blood splattered down onto her from the impact, staring wide eyed in shock up at Morgan and the pure rage on his face before he saw what he did with the brother screaming in agony and holding his eye that was no longer in his head.
"Shit" he whispered as he shook himself off- quickly grabbing Darling, pulling her to her feet and going to drag her to run.
"Wait! Derek wait!" She paused and stumbled over her feet, catching herself on the pew and standing up from him.
"We've got to go now Darl!" He yelled.
"You've got to go! I have to go get signal to call the team- remember?" She held up his phone and wiggled it with a small breathless smile, "lock the door behind you, don't go getting yourself killed and run into the-"
"There's no way I'm leaving you!" He interrupted with determination.
"You popped out some guy's eye for me- you've done enough damage you brute of a man, I've got this! Go!" She pushed him, ducking under the other brother's hands as he launched at her after trying to help his screaming brother push his eye back in.
"Darling!" Morgan called out but she had already started running the other way back towards the coffin room and up the spiralling stairs whilst yelling down them.
"Come and get me you sons of the flock full of friggin freaks!"
Darling ran two steps at a time, hearing the rain pouring on the roof the closer she got to the bell tower entrance.
Typical, just my luck.
She shook her head and carried on running, hitching up her blood soaked now almost fully red wedding dress and climbing through onto the bell tower roof of the hastily made building.
"Come on, come on feet work faster!" She tried to climb up the side of the columns to the top of the bell tower as fast as possible, knowing she didn't have a lot of time before the gun powder she had chucked by the window in the coffin room was hit by the furnace flames and lit the whole place up- with her on top of it all if she wasn't lucky.
Her hand slipped and sliced itself on the sharp corner of the column and making her wince with watery eyes in pain but she had to keep going, bruising her knees and scraping her body the further she got up.
A sudden rumble beneath her told her that it was too late- the flames had gotten the gunpowder, the building was on fire, the explosion beneath her sealing her fait that she was too late to be able to escape.
But not too late for her to do what she needed to do.
She clung on for dear life as she pushed herself to climb, reminding herself that she still needed to get signal, reminding herself that even if she couldn't get down and out of this god forsaken woods that Morgan was down there and he needed someone to rescue him.
Her skin felt like it was on fire from gripping the slippery roof, her bare feet bled as they sliced on the tiles, but she still climbed.
Even as the bell of the tower heated up from the ever growing flames, she climbed.
Because she had only one thought in her head.
Derek.
As she flung her arm around the spire of the top of the burning church, standing on her tippy toes to hold up the phone to the darkening sky she held her breath for any sign of any bars.
"Come on... come on! Please!" She cried with a panic, hearing the banging of the bell tower door and screams from below her, feeling tears involuntarily pour down her face from the acts that had happened in that church tonight.
The installed religious guilt of burning down a church was bad enough but the bodies she had left, the lies she had told, the acts she had committed all threatened to suffocate her along with her sobs.
"For god sakes please! Come on!" She cried at the phone, feeling her rage take over and going to throw it until she saw something that for once gave her hope.
A single bar.
The influx of missed calls and texts on the homescreen from the team were overwhelming but Darling had to try to push past all the notifications, trying to open Morgan's phone with slippery bloodied hands- but it was locked.
"Darling?!" A voice called over the rain from far below, Morgan spotting her from the woods line on the top of the burning building and yelling in a panicked shock.
"Since when do you have a gosh darn password?! Your paranoid data protection is being a real pain in my ass right now!" She yelled with frustration down at him, trying to push the wet hair out of her face as it sopped and clung to her much like her dress.
"What the hell are you doing?! Get down from there!" Morgan yelled at her, "the building is on fire!"
"Give me your password!"
"Get down here right now!"
"Password!"
"You'll die if you stay up there and try to make the call!"
"I'm going to die up here anyway just give me your password!"
"W-what?!"
Darling sighed and shook her head, realising she shouldn't have told him that but not having time to explain, "just give me your password! Let me call for help for you!"
"Let me help you! Tell me what to do to get you down!"
The building shook as the door to the bell tower burst open with Betty climbing out with the terrifying expression of a woman who had nothing to lose anymore, holding the fire poker pulled from her husband's chest as she looked around, spotting Darling above and raising the poker to her with a scowl.
"You."
Darling stared in fear before shaking herself out of it, "Derek! Now would be a great time to give me that password!"
"Darling?! What's going on!?" Morgan tried to run around to see what was happening but being met with a fist to the face by one of the brothers who had climbed out of the window smashed by the fire.
"You ruined my brother's best hunting eye!" He attacked Morgan, throwing his fists down at him as Morgan struggled to get up off the floor and took blow after blow.
"Derek!" Darling could see it all unfolding below as she tried to keep an eye on Bet who was struggling to climb up to her, slurring words at her the whole time.
"Derek! Derek- behind you!" Darling climbed around the spire and tried to direct him as the other brother came running out of the building and joined the fight- his face still bleeding and eye hanging out of it's socket, "he's to your left! Wait no I meant right- shit sorry!"
"Ow!? What the hell Darling?!" Morgan exclaimed as a piece of roofing was thrown down and hit him in the face.
"I'm so sorry! That was meant to hit the others!" She apologised, throwing more tiles that almost ripped off her already broken nails as she pulled them off the scolding roof, hurling them down and this time hitting the brothers.
"Hey?! Where's that coming from!?" The brothers, who weren't the brightest bulbs in the world, looked around for a moment in the storming rain- just enough for Morgan to get up and take his shots.
The two brothers were on the wet ground, unconscious, within the next few minutes as Morgan panted from the fight.
"Hell yeah!" Darling exclaimed with proud glee which made Morgan laugh before he saw Betty getting closer to her.
"Darling!" He warned but she just shook her head with an odd sense of calm to her voice.
"It's okay Derek, I'll be okay- just tell me your password sugar."
"How will you be okay?! The building is collapsing!"
"I'll figure out a plan, I always do" she tried to smile over her tears and play it off as a joke but Morgan knew her too well and felt a jab in his chest of a realisation.
"You... you don't have a plan, do you Darl? This is it, isn't it? This is how your plan ends- with you calling the police and then what? Dying?"
Her silence was his answer before she swallowed and spoke, "just give me your password Derek."
"No" he shook his head decidedly, "no... no because if I don't give you the password then you can't complete your plan, then you have to come up with a new one!"
"Derek there is no other plan" she sighed, "there's no way I'm getting out of this- look at me! I'm on a burning building roof as a crazed widow tries to poker me to death, I'm not getting out of this one with some kind of high school prank of a plan."
"Well I'm not letting you die!" He yelled, rolling up his sleeves and going to run back into the building just as another huge explosion of flames when off.
"Derek! Get away from the doors!" Darling exclaimed, not being able to see him until he ran back from the flames.
"Holy shit- how much gun powder did you line that place with you mad woman!?"
"I didn't exactly have time to measure it out now did I?!" She yelled down, "now give me that god damn password!"
"No!" He yelled up, searching for any other way, going to climb up the building if he had to despite it being impossible.
"Derek!" She cried down, "please! For Chrits sake just let me help you!"
"Why do you always get to help me?!" He suddenly yelled up at her, "why won't you let me help you?!"
"What? You always help me!"
"Not like you help me- not in the same way. For god sakes Darl you left our hotel room with batshit Betty so I wouldn't potentially get hurt!" He exclaimed with frustration, "just let me be the one to do something stupidly heroic for you for once!"
"I'm not stupid for wanting you to live!"
"But you're stupid for letting yourself die to do so! You have no idea how-" He yelled up, pausing when an idea hit him as he spotted the large cross rocking with the instability of the building.
The idea hitting him was so outlandish, but so was everything else that happened in the last 24 hours and Morgan had no other options.
"Derek? Are you still there?" Darling called down, hearing stuff banging but unable to see him through the smoke- however she did see Betty who came into her sight as she made it up the roof with a furious and exhausted gaze.
"You... you ruined my family!"
"Now hang on a minute Bet-" Darling tried to step back from her but her foot slipped in the rain, sending her off balance and falling down the roof tiles.
Her sliced hand grabbed onto the guttering, catching herself but paying the painful price in her hand wound as she screamed from the scolding hot pipe.
"This is what you deserve" Betty stared down at her, "my husband was right-"
"Your husband was a monster!" Darling yelled up at her.
"He loved me!"
"Then why did he tell you to take me?!" Darling's yelling silenced Betty, "why did he take all of those women?! If he loved you so much-"
"Shut up!" Betty cried out, "you shut your unholy mouth!"
"He was a psychopath Betty!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Betty lifted the poker in a fit of tearful rage, going to swing it down at Darling to send her into the flames below her, "you will burn in the fiery pits of hell for your sins!"
Darling watched in fear, not just from the impending doom but from the words that felt all too familiar of what her father had said to her when she was a child.
If she had forgotten her homework, if she hadn't brought him the right beer, if she had done nothing wrong at all.
But now she knew it wasn't true, now she didn't believe it was true.
Because she had seen monsters, she had lived with evil and this job had shown her more people worthy of the fiery pits than anyone.
And those people always seemed the luckiest;
Serial killers getting away with murdering for years because an officer forgot to knock on their door, kidnappers going months with their victims because they happened to find a house with a concrete basement, cult leaders killing to fulfil their own sadistic needs and stumbling upon religion to blame it on.
She knew now; if there was a god then the hell he would send her to would be nothing compared to what she had seen people go through in those case files on earth.
But the more Darling waiting for the impact of that poker going through her, the more she was confused about the fear she had.
A new kind of fear, a fear she had never had before.
A fear of dying.
There were times in Darling's life in fact where she would gladly have welcomed death, where she had a curiosity of how freeing it would be, of what came next and if it would be as painful as living.
But now as she was about to die, she realised that the pain was what made living worth it.
Because the pain told you that you were alive, that you were feeling, that you had things to push past the pain to experience;
Books so beautiful that you have to take a second to process it, music played on repeat that reached places words couldn't describe, the thrill of a new lover touching your hand, the agony when that hand left; the overwhelming feeling of being alive.
A feeling that Darling once hated, but now that it was about to be taken from her, she craved.
The poker came down fast and Darling knew that she didn't have what the other 'sinners' had- she didn't have luck.
She waited for the pain she could imagine; the spike piercing right through her skull, not quite killing her at first, the shock hitting her as the blood fell from her skull into her eyes.
She knew her hands would go next and she would fall into the flames, still conscious as the blood drained from her burning body.
Darling had always had a vivid imagination, but it had an intelligent truth behind it.
So she waited for that pain, knowing it would be agonising, but the pain that would hurt the most would be that she never got to make that phone call for Morgan.
She didn't get to die knowing he would be okay, knowing that someone was going to look after him, knowing that he wouldn't have to see her die alone.
But to her surprise, that pain didn't come- but instead a scream that she expected from her own mouth came from in front of her.
Darling hadn't even realised her eyes were closed tightly in fear until she opened them and saw Betty's body fall from the building down into the flames beneath her.
She looked back up onto the roof in shock, a shock that grew even more when she saw Morgan stood there with a panting to his breath and a plank of wood in his hands that he dropped immediately to reach down and pull her up.
"W-what the-" she stammered over her words with confusion as he pulled her up, "how did you- what are you-"
"Just shut up and let me hold you" he hurled her into his arms as he sat back on the slab where the bell sat above, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.
"Ouch!" She couldn't help but exclaim given the burns on her back.
"Oh shit- sorry!" He went to pull away but she didn't let go, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and pulling herself closer to him despite the pain of her injuries.
"I-I'm really glad you decided to be the stupidly heroic one this time" she whispered into his shoulder as he chuckled at her, unable to stop his relieved tears leaving his eyes.
"Me too Darl, me too."
The same tears were in Morgan's eyes as he sat with Darling on the forest floor waiting in the rain for the team after realising Garcia probably was tracking his phone as soon as it connected to any kind of a signal.
Morgan glanced over at Darling who was staring at the crumbled flaming church and the giant cross thrown onto the floor next to it of which Morgan had used to climb up to a ledge to get to her.
"Well... if I wasn't going to hell before, I certainly am now" Darling attempted to joke, looking over at Morgan who chuckled but could sense her real fear.
"Hey, at least we'll be there together" he joked back, knowing that would bring her more comfort than him trying to convince her she wasn't a bad person for trying to survive tonight, more than him trying to unpack her religious guilt and more than him sitting in silence next to her.
"You'd come to hell with me?"
"Of course I would, who else will keep you from pranking the devil? Plus, we seem to be luckier when we're together- well not so much lucky, I guess unluckily lucky?" He joked, nudging her arm with a teasing smile that she chuckled at, feeling a warmth in her chest from his oddly comforting words and resting her head on his shoulder as she looked at the burning building through the rain.
"How's your bullet wound?"
"A little sore- how's your burn?"
"Not as painful as my thigh" she chuckled, "what about your head?"
"Probably as painful as yours" Morgan couldn't help his exhausted laugher.
"At least we'll have some cool matching scars" Darling chuckled.
"Almost as cool as our matching tramp stamps?" He teased.
"Hey, I'm not the one who got a real tramp stamp" she laughed, nudging his arm as she sat up and looked into his eyes for a moment, almost trapped there before she cleared her throat and brought on a new subject to fill the silence that threatened to bring the awkward un-spoken tension between them that had been there since the kiss.
"So do you think the team are coming?"
Just as Morgan went to respond, a distant sound of sirens crept into their ears as a relief passed both of them and Darling led down- ignoring the pain of the wet wood's floors on her fresh burn of her back.
"Go on then, what is your password?"
"Are you planning on hacking me?" Morgan joked, lying back onto the floor with her.
"Oh yeah, I really want to steal your candy crush data" she rolled her eyes.
"Hey- I told you about my candy crush addiction in confidence" he chuckled before looking over at her prompting face, "you really want to know my password?"
"I'm more curious about when you got one- you used to always leave your phone unlocked and unguarded in high school."
"I put one on when I joined the academy and now have the numbers of high up agents, the FBI aren't quite as trusting as highschoolers" Morgan chuckled.
"That makes sense" Darling nodded, "can I at least try and guess it?"
Morgan burst out laughing before nodding with amusement, "sure, knock yourself out- but I don't think you'll be able to guess it."
"You underestimate me, I'm a great guesser" she said before beginning a series of guesses that continued long after the team arrived, even after they were taken to the hospital and separated for a moment for Darling to be patched up as Morgan's bullet and head wounds were cleaned properly before they were allowed to leave.
"How are you feeling?" Rossi asked as he and Hotch walked into the hospital room to see Morgan.
"Like a million bucks" Morgan joked, sitting up and pulling down his shirt as the nurse left from stitching him up, clearly not feeling great.
"You've been through a lot the last 24 hours" Hotch nodded knowingly before sighing, "I'm owe you both an apology Derek."
"For what?"
"For not finding you two quick enough, for not knowing that you were missing, for you having to climb a roof of a burning building to get a signal for us to be able to get anywhere near you."
"Hotch, you can't blame yourself" Morgan shook his head, "we were in the middle of nowhere, you had no idea about the hotel we were tricked to go to, no idea about the unsubs- it's fine. Plus, it was Darling who climbed that building to get signal, not me- it was her who did everything to get us out of there."
Hotch paused with a confused but impressed look at the fact it was Darling and not Morgan like he wrongly assumed.
"I guess the rumours I heard about her were true then" he mumbled to himself with curiosity about her past now.
"What?" Morgan didn't quite hear and stood up to leave now that he was stitched up and they had a jet to get to.
"Nothing" Hotch smiled before Rossi tilted his head with a small smile in the corner of his mouth at Morgan as Hotch left to take a phone call outside, "you know kid, we did find that fax receipt a few hours before we got your signal call..."
"Oh?" Morgan said with disinterest as he pulled on his clean shirt and jacket.
"Mhm, it was a very convincing assignment letter- but what I found most fascinating was who it was intended for."
Morgan panicked when he realised that Rossi knew, turning to him and pausing with confusion at his small smile.
"The fake mission letter was addressed to Luke and Darling" Rossi pointed out.
"I..." Morgan tried to think of what to say.
"Why did you tell him it was for you and Darling instead?"
"I... I don't know. I, uh, must have misread it or thought Luke would be better doing something else I guess" he lied, a bad lie that could be spotted a mile away but he hoped Rossi wouldn't catch on- of course he did but his smile and small nod told Morgan he wouldn't say anything.
"Well, she's lucky you did go with her, you two are a good team together."
"No... I'm lucky she was there, she saved my life" Morgan said sincerely.
"She seems to be doing that a lot lately, we're all lucky to have her" Rossi agreed before a tapping at the door made them turn as the nurse walked in with Darling.
"She refused to take the pain medication and be released from the hospital until she 'figured this out'" the nurse sighed as Darling stepped forward with a notebook.
"Okay these are possible passwords so far-" Morgan watched with amusement as she flipped through the pages and read out different combinations of numbers that it could be based on popularity, Morgan's favourite number and years that his family was born.
"Any of them right?" Darling looked up with anticipation from the notepad as Morgan chuckled and shook his head.
"Sorry Sherlock, better luck next time."
"Damn it- I thought I had it with that last one."
"You thought his password to his top secret FBI phone would be 2468?" Rossi raised an amused eyebrow at her.
"He wanted to be a cheerleader in highschool so I thought-"
"Okay that's enough back story" Morgan laughed, covering her mouth as he went to leave, "I'll be in the car before you embarrass me anymore."
"It's not your fault you didn't make the cheer team, it's your closed hip joints!" Darling teased as he left, chuckling with Rossi who smiled at her.
"How are you feeling kiddo?"
"Oh you know, like a million bucks" she joked, spotting Rossi's expression and tilting her head with confusion.
"What's that smile for?"
"Derek said the same thing" he chuckled, a phone call coming through and making him go to leave.
"We're heading for the jet in half an hour and going to get you both properly examined back at the hospital at home" he said before pausing at the door and smiling over his shoulder, "and Darling, about his password; I have a sneaking suspicion that if you try someone close to him's certain birthday it might get you in there."
"I already said his mom's and sisters" Darling sighed before seeing Rossi roll his eyes with a chuckle as he left.
"You both are truly clueless."
"What?" She quizzed but he had gone, leaving her to think for a moment about what other birthday he could have meant.
Luckily, Morgan's phone was on the side table still for her to test out.
She tried his dog's birthday, his birthday- even Garcia's birthdays, but none of them worked.
That was until a thought hit her.
No, that's stupid, it wouldn't be yours.
She tried to tell herself, almost not even trying it because it felt ridiculous- but did it?
She was his best friend after all, but back when he added the password they weren't talking much, they hadn't seen each other properly in two years at that point, there's no way it would-
The numbers seemed to put themselves in as her fingers moved on the lock screen without her mind telling her to, pausing in shock as it opened to the homepage where a photo of Morgan's dog Clooney sat behind his apps.
She stared at the phone with a small smile for a while before it locked on its own and Morgan came back up to the room to look for it.
"Hey- you figured it out yet?" He chuckled at her, assuming she was still locked out of it but pausing at the tears in her eyes of her smile as she shook her head and stood up, handing it to him.
"No, I guess your password skills are just too advanced for me" she joked.
"Are you okay?" He turned to her, spotting her tears but she just nodded, trying to hide her overwhelmed smile up at him.
"I'm good, it's just been a long day."
"You can say that again" Morgan laughed before looking down at her with a soft smile, "hey, why don't we get some ice-cream before the flight back?"
"Derek, I haven't eaten properly in 24 hours, was chased through the woods for hours, almost fell off a burning church and you're asking me if I want to get ice-cream?" She raised an eyebrow before smiling, "of course I want to."
"There she is, I was worried you would start acting like an adult then" he teased, starting a conversation about what ice-cream they would get but Darling couldn't help looking down at his phone with a small smile at how even back then, even when they weren't talking as much as they should have been, even with all the grudges being held- he still used her birthday as his password and kept it to this day.
Not knowing that her birthday had, for years, been his lucky number too.
Because he never felt luckier than when he was with her.