Cruel - Criminal minds enemies to lovers

Competition (1)

"Good morning" Athena smiled at Morgan as his eyes flickered open in their bed. It had been a few weeks since they got back from France. Athena had to spend a few nights in the hospital when they got back to the airport for observations of her wounds, not to mention the much-needed check-up of her tumour which wasn't getting any better.

"-But it's not getting any worse" Athena tried to comfort Morgan as she checked out of the hospital.

"Athena, it's a stage 4 brain tumour- it literally can't get any worse" he rolled his eyes. He didn't know what he was expecting. The doctor had already told them there was nothing they could do to stop it, that it was just going to be seeing how long before it took her and what they could do to push that back as far as possible. But he couldn't help but hope for a miracle, for something to happen that would magically take it away even though he knew it was impossible.

"He did say I didn't look as sick anymore which is progress, got my spunky personality back with my round cheeks and everything" Athena said as she got into his car and they drove off back home for the first time in weeks, a home she missed desperately.

"You do look better" Morgan said before quickly adding "not that you looked bad before, you always look gorgeous, I just mean-"

She burst out laughing.

"I've never seen you get so flustered so quickly."

"I'm sorry- I'm not normally this bad with my words, I'm just tired" he chuckled.

"You have been having bad nightmares to be fair" Athena shrugged.

He had been having them every night since they got back from France. He wouldn't tell Athena what they were of but she knew they were bad. He would wake up yelling and screaming, sometimes he would grab her hand in his sleep like he did on the plane but Athena would usually manage to slip out of his grip before it got bad. She didn't tell him about the time he hit her during one of his nightmares, she knew it would upset him, she knew he would feel horrible and make them sleep in separate rooms to protect her. She didn't need protecting from him, she didn't want protecting from him. So she kept quiet and just told him she cut her cheek and split her lip on the kitchen remodelling she had been doing during her time off work. They had both been forced to take a mandatory two weeks off work but given how much paperwork and help the BAU needed, Morgan was brought in after a few days. Athena was ordered to stay home given the fact she had a lot more injuries from that event and the FBI were now very careful with her so they didn't get sued or exposed again.

She spent the time continuing work on the house. Cleaning up the state Garcia had left it in, remodelling the kitchen with Morgan and decorating her sewing office he had made for her as a surprise one day.

She had never had her own space like that before, no one had ever created a space for her before, no one had ever created anything for her before.

He had hand crafted a large sewing desk bench out of dark, vintage wood that had a built-in sewing machine into it. He had created a wall of built in, old library shelves for her to store her fabric in as well as a secret weapons compartment hidden at the back of it which would flip around. She loved that part the most. He wasn't fond of her having weapons in the house but he knew she felt safest when she had weapons around her, odd comforts of her childhood and feeling the need to always be prepared to fight when she was on the run.

She had decorated the room with vintage accents and made it her own with a dusty, dark green colour all over the walls and a landscape mural she spent hours one night doing as Morgan attempted to sleep- sometimes the nightmares got a bit much for her if she couldn't wake him up. As well as the sewing machine built into the desk and bookshelves, Morgan made her an easel for her paintings. She didn't do them often given how busy they were with work but she really enjoyed drawing and painting and he loved watching her do it. He would sneak into the room when she painted on it with her headphones in, he would sit in the armchair in the corner of the room and just watch her dancing around to the music and working on the easel. He knew she probably knew he was there, Athena was very observant, but that made it better to know that she could act so free with him there watching her paint.