Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

For you, always

Darling had just quit her job.

In front of the head of her unit in the FBI, in front of her unit chief and his manager, in front of her whole team; she had quit her job.

Not only that, but she had just finally gotten out of that prison.

A prison where she had yearned for all the things she would do once she got out, all the life she would live after seeing so many die, all the food she would eat to make up for the mush given to her day after day.

She had seen horrors, been stabbed, beaten, walked herself to her death, got electrocuted and cut through a man's fingers all within two hours.

And now she was out, she was free not only of that prison but a job where those things were seem as normal, as stories to show how dedicated you were to the agency- but now she was free, and she could do anything she wanted.

So naturally the first thing that Darling did after quitting was the only thing she had thought about for the last 20 minutes that she drove in whatever SWAT car he had accidentally stolen;

She got ice-cream.

As the teenager in the ice-cream shop handed her the cone of triple stacked ice-cream, Darling realised her one fundamental flaw in this 'very well thought-out' first hour of freedom adventure; she had no money to pay for it.

"Oh shoot, I'm sorry I left my wallet- well I'm not really too sure where it would be at this point" Darling shook her head, going to hand it back but the teenager just shook her head.

"It's, uh, on the house- you look like you could do with it" she glanced at the blood covering Darling, the makeshift bandage around her hip and her ankle completely turned red- taken mostly aback by the sweet smile on her lips still.

"Really? Thank you so much!" Darling knew she would be emotional after everything she had been through but bursting into tears and hugging this kid for simply giving her free ice-cream was a new level.

"I'll take her off your hands, her hugs have a tendency to become smothering" a voice chuckled from behind Darling where Morgan stood by the front door to the ice-cream shop, smiling at her as she turned to him.

"Derek" she felt the overwhelmed tears come to her eyes again before holding up her ice-cream excitedly, "look! They gave me ice-cream!"

"I can see that" he chuckled with amusement, walking over to her and placing cash on the counter for the girl who looked between them with not as much as bewilderment as Morgan expected.

"Are you guys gonna buy anything else or is that it today?"

Morgan tilted his head at her, taken aback by how casual she seemed to find all of this "we're good, thanks."

"Okay, have a ice-tastic day" she said with little to no enthusiasm, turning and leaning on the counter on her phone again as Morgan and Darling left the store and sat on the chairs outside the front.

"I've never seen someone react so casually to someone covered in blood before, you think she's a murderer in the making?" Morgan joked.

"Nah, you just see a lot of weird shit when you work in hospitality" Darling chuckled, "I'm probably not the strangest thing she's seen today."

"That's concerning" he laughed, unable to help himself watching Darling in utter awe of every move she made.

Every lick of her ice-cream, the light that hit her face from the simple flavours but to her were something so simplistically beautiful after not having it for so long, something that reminded her of the life before, of herself before that seemed so different to who she had to become to survive.