Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

Unspoken surprises

//TW mentions of domestic abuse near the end of chapter//

Morgan wasn't sure what compelled him to step out of the station conference room where the team were having a meeting with their head unit chief, Aaron Hotchner, on their second week of their new case case.

He wasn't sure what made him pull up Darling's number and definitely wasn't sure what was making him call it.

But after seeing her again, after remembering their first trip to get ice-cream together, remembering his broken promise- he felt the urge to talk to his old friend again.

But instead of her voice, he was met with her voicemail- although it was her voice in a way.

"Hiya! It's me Darling! I mean it's not me, this is past me recording this- this is a voicemail if you're unaware, I'm not just trapped in my phone-" Morgan couldn't help his amused chuckled at her old voicemail that hadn't changed all of these years despite her phone changing numerous times given how much she dropped it, "-anyway, leave a message- or just text me like a normal person ya weirdos."

The beep tone went off before Morgan could hang up and just text her, confused himself as to why he didn't do that in the first place.

"Uh, hi!" He said too eagerly before clearing his throat, "sorry, I know you hate phone calls so I don't know why I thought you'd answer, just wanted to call to..."

Why was he calling? He wasn't entirely sure himself; he was just sure that he felt that feeling in his chest he did back in freshman year of high school when he sat in the emergency room next to her with his nose bleeding from her accidentally punching him, wishing the doctor would take longer so he could learn more about the bizarre girl with over the top hair and a sense of humour he couldn't help but enjoy.

"-to, uh, see how the twins were? I forgot to ask about them properly the other night" he made up a lie, although he was curious how her older twin siblings were doing.

Although Darling was the youngest of her siblings, she always expected to act like the oldest and was treated like the oldest being the only girl; she even looked after her older brother's daughter, Addie, most of the time despite her older twin brothers meant to be the guardians of her, both of them relying far too much on Darling for everything.

Morgan had always gotten on with her brothers, they were a few years older than him but they enjoyed sports and took a liking to Morgan because of that- but he didn't like how they constantly relied on Darling and used her to figure everything out even when she was young.

Family was something that Morgan quickly learned that he wasn't allowed to bring up to Darling, in fact it was a rule;

Rule number 5; do not comment on each other's family

Although, he knew that rule was mostly for her family, he was more than happy for her to comment on his- his family loved her and she them.

But Darling's family was always a strange dynamic to Morgan especially compared to his own.

He had only met her father a handful of times but he wasn't someone Morgan would want to be around especially the more he learned about him when Darling slowly opened up more to him, a fair few 'arguments' were had when Morgan 'broke' rule number 5 and expressed his extreme dislike of her father to her.

And then there were her brothers.

Tobias and Duncan were nice enough, football stars of the school a few years before Morgan started, both of them entering freshman year of college and both quickly dropping out when Darling entered high school; 4 and a half years earlier than she should have.