Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

Chapter 31

"what we change inwardly, will change outer reality"-- plutarch

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Las Vegas

February 23 2008

11:24 pm

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He wanted to go home, not to Quantico where his eager dog waited for him, and his (no doubt) very full message box of women that he never could quite remember. No, he wanted to go home, to Chicago, to his mom, back to when he could crawl up into her lap, and she'd run her worn hand over his hair, murmuring gently in his ear: Derek, baby, what's wrong? talk to mama. 

Instead he was standing in a hallway, feeling strangely displaced, holding a threadbare cable knit sweater and a book, feeling like the foundation that he had been trying to hold together, had finally cracked and he had been sent spiraling into the abyss. 

A distant beep, pierced through his skull and he winced at the intrusion. Glancing around at the bustling atmosphere, he headed down to the room where Spencer had been moved to. 

Before he opened the door, a doctor intercepted him, one hand coming down on his shoulder. Morgan flinched away from the contact, and the doctor lifted his hand, smoothing over the rumple. 

"Ah, agent?" He gave a moment for Morgan to provide his name. 

"Morgan, Derek Morgan?" There was a small flutter of alarm growing in his chest. What had happened now? He should have been here, should have protected him. He grew anxious and tried to peer into the room, his heart pounding in his chest.

The doctor grabbed his biceps. "Morgan? I need you to calm down for me," he exaggerated his breaths, breathing in deeply, and exhaling them out. "He's fine, I just needed to talk to you about him before you went in there." 

Morgan nodded, the hand not deathgripping the sweater and book, holding the white jacket tightly. "Sorry." He waited for his own breaths to calm down, and forced his own panic back. "Sorry."

The doctor gave him a forced smile. "You're fine." He waited a beat, to gauge his level of panic and then stood back from him. "Spencer it seems, didn't remember much of his last few minutes of his captivity."

Morgan's eyes widened. "You mean he had some sort of amnesia?"

The doctor nodded. "Had. The mind tends to block out traumatic events, and what he went through was very traumatizing. But, he discovered the site of the stab wounds, and I'm afraid it'll all be coming back to him." He grabbed Morgan's shoulder. "He'll need support, and lots of it." Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a brochure. "I offered this to your boss already, it's a rehabilitation home for him? He could get the help he needed and --"

Morgan grabbed the brochure out of his hand. "Listen. He is not going back to one of these, ever. He can stay with me before he'll ever step foot in one of those."

The doctor stepped back. "Agent Morgan, he's unstable --" 

"To hell with it, you said he needed support, I can help." He stood back and eyed him. "Can I go see him now?" 

The doctor sighed, and nodded, stepping away. 

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"Bastard." 

The voice was terrifyingly familiar, and Spencer felt the cold spikes of fear nestle in deeply. He turned around, it was dark, too dark, much too dark.

"You took everything from me."

The voice was behind him, now, and he whipped around, eyes straining to see something.