Isabel looked down at her partner, who was laying on the hospital bed, breathing steadily. In her hand, she held the vial that contained the antidote to the poison. Now all she needed was for her teammates to successfully create a diversion so that she could administer it without the hospital staff knowing. They didn't take kindly to others doing their job. So, she continued to talk to the woman on the bed, spouting nothing but nonsense, until she heard a commotion, and Isabel smiled. As all the staff went to where the commotion was, Isabel quickly found a vein, stuck the needle in the woman's arm, and administered the antidote. It didn't take long for her partner to open her eyes.
*****************
Ciara pulled the safety goggles over her head as she looked down at the samples she had collected. She didn't really need the goggles, as she wouldn't be doing anything that could potentially blow up in her face, but she thought they completed the experience of being in a lab. They made her feel like a real chemist, so she kept them on as she pushed her arms through the sleeves of a lab coat. She had been given permission to use one of the labs back at Quantico, and JJ and Rossi, one of which drove her and the other came out of pure curiosity, were watching her intently. So much so that Ciara was close to yelling at them to quit hovering.
She grabbed one of the drinks and poured a little bit out into a Petri dish, doing the same with the other drinks and the bottles of tequila and vodka. She knew what she was looking for, and she thought with amusement that she really didn't need to come to the lab to test for such things. But, it had been a hot minute since she had gotten to play chemist, and everyone who was affected was in the hospital and out of harm's way, so what was the harm? She then grabbed the test she was going to be using- the test that would show if her theory was right or wrong. A test for date rape drugs.
She grabbed the three drinks and tested each of them for one of the three most common drugs: Rohypnol, GHB, and Ketamine. Each had a different way of affecting the drugged person, and each worked on a different time frame. But Ciara hadn't known how long after the drugged person got their drinks they passed out, so she couldn't tell which was used by the time frame. So she had to test all the drinks and see which came out positive. She shook her head, not wanting to get sidetracked. She had a job to do. So she looked at the tests, which had results quickly. But what she saw shocked her.
All three had come out positive.
She looked at the tests questioningly, wondering how all three of them were positive. Did the drugger switch drugs with each drink? That didn't seem likely. Most druggers picked one and went with it. So, she cleaned out the Petri dishes, completely sterilized them, and ran the test again, but with each drink being tested for a different drug. And again, all three came out positive. So she ran the test a third time, and the results didn't change.
"Huh," she said under her breath, before finally testing the alcohol itself. And, sure as shit, it tested positive for all three date rape drugs. "Well, ain't that something."
"What do you got?" JJ asked, stepping up beside Ciara, Rossi stepping up on her other side.
"Our Unsub decided to really feck shite up. He put some unholy concoction of Rohypnol, Ketamine, and GHB into the alcohol," Ciara answered, and JJ's eyes went wide.
"Good Lord. It's a miracle nobody dropped dead after consuming that," she responded, and Ciara nodded.
"So now we have to find out who did this and why. We're going to need to find out when these bottles were received, when they were opened, and everyone who would have come into contact with them," Ciara said.
"Actually, I have the answer to that. I asked the bartender about the alcohol he had been serving, if anyone might have tampered with it. He said the only people who had access to it would have been him and the manager, and apparently the manager had mainly stayed in the office tonight to do some paperwork," Rossi explained.
"Which means..." JJ drifted off.
"That the only person who really had access to the alcohol all night would have been the bartender."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Ciara wondered. "Let's go book him!"
***************
Morgan looked first at Akilah, then to Ciara, who was sitting on the opposite side of the hospital bed. After she had figured out that the reason that everyone had passed out was because they had been given a date rape drug cocktail, she had called the hospital, who had treated the patients accordingly. Now all they were waiting on was for Akilah to wake up so they could talk about things. Ciara sighed, ran her fingers through her hair, making sure to not accidentally pull her ponytail out, and lightly slapped the arms of the chair she was sitting in.
"Well, I hate to not be here when she wakes up, but I really want to see Reid, and the ICU visiting hours are over in forty-five minutes," she said, and Morgan checked his watch to see that she was right. Of course she was. Ciara might as well be a clock for how in tune she was with time.
"That's okay. I'll be here when she wakes up," Morgan responded, and while he didn't really want to admit it, he was glad that Ciara wouldn't be there. He was actually kind of glad that he'd be alone with Akilah when she woke up. While Ciara knew the secret of what happened between them, he didn't want to talk to Akilah about it with Ciara in the room. That conversation was best had when they were alone.
"I know ye will. Hey, is there anything ye want me tell Reid?" she asked, and Morgan looked over at her.
"Yeah, tell him he'd better never do that shit again," he said, and Ciara nodded.
"Okay. I'll be back down when the ICU nurse most likely kicks me out." Morgan laughed slightly and Ciara took one last look at Akilah, before leaving the room. Morgan looked back over at Akilah, who was breathing steadily, and he wondered. Would this convince her to get help for her drinking? Would she still refuse? Would she even remember what had happened before she had passed out? That thought worried him. If she didn't, he'd have to go on pretending that nothing had ever happened between them. That the kiss had never happened, and he hated the idea of lying to himself like that.
Or even worse, would she remember and not share his feelings? Ciara had said that he made her happy, but that didn't mean what he was feeling towards the fiery red-head was the same as what she felt towards him. But he had to know. So, when she woke up, they would talk about it. Just as he had decided that, he noticed her stirring, and he watched as she slowly opened her eyes. She looked around foggily, telling Morgan that she was rather disorientated, but that was to be expected. Finally, she looked over at Morgan.
"Hey."
"Hey." She looked around some more, and her face melted into confusion. "What happened? I can tell I'm in the hospital, but how exactly did I get here?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Morgan asked, and her brows furrowed as if she was trying to figure out what the answer to that question was.
"I-I remember you and I arguing about me getting help for my drinking, and I remember telling you about what happened in Saudi Arabia that brought me here. And then we argued some more, and then you... and I..." He raised an eyebrow, not sure if her drifting off was becuase she was struggling to remember, or if she was struggling to believe. "We kissed."
"Yeah, we did. But we'll talk about that later."
"Okay. And then about five seconds after that I passed out, and now I'm here. So what happened in between those two events?" Akilah asked.
"Well, you weren't the only one that passed out. At least half of the bar did. So I called the team to come investigate what had happened," Morgan answered, and Akilah looked over at him.
"So, do they...?"
"They know you have a drinking problem, but that's it. They don't know about Saudi Arabia and they don't know about the kiss. The only person who knows those two things is Ciara, and she can keep a secret. That information, for now, is going to stay between the three of us," he explained, and he wondered if she would be mad at him for telling Ciara. But they were roommates, and she had been the one to tell him about Akilah's problem in the first place. If anyone had to know, he would choose her every time.
"Okay. So then what?"
"Well, Ciara, that brilliant girl, figured out that everyone who had passed out had been drinking something with tequila or vodka. So, she decided to finally put her chemistry to good use and she found out that you and everyone else had been drugged with some unholy cocktail of Rohypnol, GHB, and Ketamine, which basically set off this huge chemical reaction inside of your body."
"And who did it?"
"It was the bartender. He confessed pretty quickly once we figured out what had been done to the alcohol. Apparently he just wanted some excitement, so he just put a random amount of the three drugs into the tequila and vodka bottles, not knowing that his little science experiment could have potentially killed everyone who consumed it. And once he was arrested, the whole team came to wait for you to wake up, but only two of us were allowed in the room, and we decided that Ciara and I would be those two," Morgan finished, and Akilah looked around.
"So where's Ciara?"
"She went up to visit Reid in the ICU before visiting hours ended up there. She'll be back down once they are," Morgan answered, and Akilah nodded.
"So I guess this is the part where we either talk about my problem or about the kiss," Akilah said, looking at her hands, and Morgan swore she almost sounded nervous.
"Well, I assume so. But let's start with your problem, now that you've admitted that you have one," Morgan responded, and as soon as he had, Akilah burst into tears. Morgan had no clue what he could have said, but he didn't have to wait long for an explanation.
"While I was unconscious, I saw some of the things I did when I was drunk. I saw some memories that the alcohol had buried. Ciara counts on me and has always been there for me, and I did awful things to her when I was drunk. How will she ever forgive me?" Akilah wondered through her tears, and Morgan reached out and grabbed her hand, bringing her attention to him.
"Getting help and kicking the habit would be a great start," he said, and Akilah nodded.
"Okay. You're right. I need to quit this. I need to quit drinking, but I'm not getting anyone's help. I want to do this on my own. I have to do this on my own," she said, before smiling. "Well, I guess not completely on my own. I have eight people to lean on, don't I?"
"You do. Which brings me to the next thing you and I need to talk about," Morgan said, and Akilah's smile dropped.
"Morgan, we can't," she started, but Morgan cut her off.
"Why not?"
"Because you know as well as I that inter-"
"Yes, and that rule has been broken. Remember Kevin and Garcia? Akilah, we make each other happy. I care about you, Akilah, and, given a little time, those feelings could even grow to something more. I can't seem to get you off my mind. That's why I cared so much about you getting help. I don't want something to happen to the woman who has completely captured my attention," he said, and Akilah smiled.
"You wanna know something funny? Right before you appeared at the bar, I was thinking of you. I was thinking about how I couldn't get you off my mind. And I was thinking about how exciting it would be to break the rules with you, Derek Morgan," she said, causing him to smile.
"Well then, what do you say? Shall we break the rules together?" he asked.
"Do you promise we can keep it a secret? At least at first?" she asked back, and he nodded. "Then yes. Let's break the rules together." And, once again, Morgan found himself without the words to say to her. He found himself without the words to explain what was going on in his head and in his heart. So he simply checked to make sure no one was watching, before taking her face in his hands and kissing her again.
Hopefully this time she wouldn't pass out.
***************
Ciara shifted her weight from one foot to the other the entire elevator ride up to the ICU. She knew what the near future looked like for Reid: he was going to stay in the ICU until he was medically stable, then he would be transferred to an in-patient psych unit. When Ciara had first heard that news, she nearly couldn't breathe from the panic that suddenly rose in her chest. But then she reminded herself that a psych unit wasn't the same as the mental hospital she had gone to. That had calmed her down. Suddenly, the elevator doors opened, and she took a deep breath before approaching the nurse's station. One nurse greeted her and asked if he could help Ciara.
"Hi, Ci-ara Byrne. I'm here to visit Spen-cer Reid," she told the nurse.
"You do know that visiting hours are over soon, right?"
"In forty-two minutes. Yes, I'm aware. I just want to see how he's doing," Ciara told him, and he nodded. He asked if she was family, and even though the BAU considered themselves family, she had to tell him that she wasn't. He asked her for a minute, before calling back to Reid's room, asking the nurse to ask him if she was allowed to visit. The answer must have been positive, because he nodded, before hanging up the phone and giving Ciara the number of the room Reid was in. She thanked him and made her way to that room. When she got there, she noticed that the door was slightly open, and she peeked inside before making her presence known.
Reid was looking down at a book, flipping through the pages at the insane speed he always read at. In one arm there was an IV, probably dripping naloxone, the antidote to hydromorphone, and therefore to Dilaudid. There were several other wires that she could see, all of them running below the hospital gown he was wearing. Ciara knew at least one of them was probably monitoring his heart, but she wondered what the others were for. Finally, Ciara knocked on the door, and both Reid and the nurse monitoring him looked towards the door. Reid immediately smiled when he saw Ciara.
"Hey. Can I come in?" she asked, and Reid automatically told her she could. She crossed the room, pulled a chair up to the bed, and looked at the book he was reading. "Natalya? Really? Not Isabel's best work." Reid opened his mouth to question why Ciara was referring to herself as Isabel and in the third person, and Ciara nodded her head towards the nurse in the room, and Reid understood. Only the team and a handful of other people knew that Ciara was Isabel Ashe, and that's how she wanted to keep it.
"Well, I like this one the most. Speaking of which, when do you think Ms. Ashe is going to release her next book?" Reid asked.
"I think it'll be very soon. I'm betting she'll be finished with it in the next few months," Ciara said, and Reid smiled. "So, where did you get the book?"
"Well, JJ was here earlier, and I asked her to bring me some reading material. She went to my apartment and brought me the four biggest books I have," Reid answered, and Ciara looked at the stack of books near his feet. There was War And Peace, two books that were both in a language that Ciara recognized as German, but the fourth made her smile.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? Just the fifth one?" Ciara asked, and Reid laughed softly.
"Hey, she just picked out the four biggest. She didn't read the titles," he answered.
"So how did Natalya come to be added to that list?"
"Oh, that one I asked for specifically." Ciara felt heat rise to her cheeks at that. He had asked JJ to grab her book? Out of all the books he could have asked JJ to get, he chose one of hers? "So, what happened? Just as JJ got me the books, she got a call and had to leave suddenly. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
"I would, but I'll tell ye later. I only have thirty-one minutes left, and I'd rather spend them talking about other things. Oh, speaking of which, Morgan has a message for ye."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he said to tell ye to never do this shite again," she said, and Reid looked down at his hands, shame apparent on his face. "It's okay, Reid. Ye're gonna go to the psych unit and ye're gonna get help."
"Do you think of me any differently now that this has happened?"
"I don't think anyone-"
"I don't care about anyone. I care about what you think." Ciara was taken aback by his comment. Why would anyone care what she thinks?
"No, of course I don't think of ye any differently. After all, when it comes to mental problems, I'm really not one to speak," she reminded him, and he nodded his head. They talked about anything and everything for the next thirty minutes after that, until the nurse was telling Ciara that she had to leave. Just as Ciara was at the door, Reid stopped her.
"Hey, Ciara?"
"Yeah?"
"I never thanked you for saving my life. So thank you." Ciara turned slightly and gave him a small smile.
"Everyone is going to treat me like a hero because of what I did. But I'm not a hero. I just did what needed to be done."
"Well, you were a hero. You were the hero I needed when I needed it. So thank you for being my temporary hero," he said, and she shrugged, before leaving the ICU. It was as she was on the elevator to go back to Akilah's room that she sighed and let herself whisper the words she didn't want anyone else to hear.
"Yer wrong, Reid. I'm nobody's hero. I can't be."
Well, hello there! So, Akilah and Morgan are going for their forbidden relationship! Do you think it's going to work out? Will they get caught? There are all sorts of possible directions this could go in. And why do you think Ciara doesn't think she could be anyone's hero? So, and this is making me as sad as it might make you, we are definitely almost done with this book. I'm guessing about five to seven chapters left, including the epilogue. I'm not crying, you're crying. Anyway, that's all I have for today, so...BYE!
"I'm not a hero. I just did what any decent person would have done." -Miep Gies