Cruel - Criminal minds enemies to lovers

The in-between

//Sorry this is kinda short chapter, I realised how bad I am at shortening down chapters so trying to get better at that lol//

"I swear to god this fucking bump is getting right on my nerves" Athena grumbled as she twizzled into her old usual seat on the back of the jet, ignoring how strange it felt to be back on the plane.

"I still don't think you should be getting on a plane this heavily pregnant" Morgan shook his head and sat next to her.

"If you had it your way I would have been on bed rest the last 9 months" she rolled her eyes, "you're boring."

"I'm boring for caring about the safety of you and our baby?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, hella boring. I told you about my one wish for this pregnancy-"

"I'm not letting you get into a fist fight Athena" Morgan laughed.

"But how fucking cool would it be to beat someone up whilst pregnant? That's another level of shame to being beaten up. There's no other perks of being pregnant."

"How about the child of ours that you're growing?" He chuckled.

"Eh, lame" she joked and flicked open the file, barely glancing at it before chucking it on the table and lying back in her seat to get comfortable.

"I'm going to need you to read that" Hotch spoke from his seat, she raised an eyebrow at him.

"I think you're forgetting that I'm not your employee, prisoner or friend anymore Mr Hotchner, I don't care what you need" she made a mocking smile before pulling out her phone, pausing at over a dozen missed texts and calls from clients and a lot from Keith with disappointment and confusion over the opening being cancelled last minute.

She sighed and tucked her phone away.

"Everything okay?" Morgan whispered to her, she smiled at him.

"Of course, just this little bitch reminding me that my bladder will never be the same again- gotta pee" she chuckled, gesturing at the bump and getting up with his help before walking down to the bathroom.

"How long does she have to go with the pregnancy?" Rossi tried to make conversation with Morgan who gave him a look that said you would know that if you were her friend and didn't abandon her.

"Less than month left" he answered and flicked through the files.

"She still looks the same, just like someone's stuck a 9 month pregnancy belly on her" Emily chuckled, hoping to elevate some of the tension between Morgan and the group- it did not.

"Well she did spend the majority of her pregnancy doing your jobs for you here, getting sent on a CIA mission for JJ and under a lot of stress so no wonder it's taking her a long time to get to the healthy size for the baby" Morgan half snapped at them before looking back at his file, "not the mention the tumour she's still fighting."

"How is the tumour doing?" Reid eventually broke the silence that swept through the jet. No one knew how to interact with each other anymore- it was like they all had forgotten how they used to be, how much of a family they had become. It was like being stuck in this strange in between of never knowing where you stood now since they didn't get a 'goodbye' and weren't allowed to reach out- it was like time was frozen but everyone knew it so when it unfroze, the feelings were all mixed up.

It was strange not knowing where they stood with her, despite her glares and coldness towards them making it quite obvious that she wasn't their friend- she still showed up here, she still came back, she still seemed hurt by their actions and that confused them all the more.