Darling deception- a criminal minds fanfic

Failed doubts

"It looks like the fire originated from this area, did you or your partner light any candles before you left..."

Darling couldn't focus on the firemen pointing at the apartment blueprints hours after they had discovered it, the black smoke still engulfing the air even now.

All it took was the mention of lighter fluid and paper and she was running up the building's stairs with an echo of yells growing distant.

"Miss! You can't go in there!"

"What are you doing?!" 

"Darling stop!"

And she did stop, she skidded right to a halt as she stared down at the ashes that was her case files, the piles and piles of black, chard paper with a ring of ash darker than the rest of the crispy apartment.

It was gone.

All of it.

Every crumb of evidence she could possibly have to prove her word on that case, every word that could somehow convince the higher ups that she wasn't crazy, every ounce of hope.

Her hand brushed through the rubble with utter defeat, pausing as it brushed something different from the soft accounts of survival.

The polaroid she had once stuck to her cell wall was equally as burnt, the image of her and Morgan on their prom night swirled together, the only recognisable quality being Morgan's eyes.

Those same eyes watched her from the door of his apartment, an apartment that now stopped him dead in his tracks.

It wasn't exactly an interior designer's dream before, but now it looked like a bomb sight.

The corner where Clooney would have his breakfast was flooded with foam from the fire-fighters, the couch where he and Darling argued about Real Housewives indistinguishable from the mess around it, the welcome mat where Darling had come back to him swept into a dust-pan.

It wasn't like he loved his apartment, it was just a space, a space he didn't spend a lot of time in given his occupation, but it felt as if the memories had been burnt.

"Luke."

Darling's quiet, yet certain, voice whispered.

"What?" Morgan quizzed before shaking his head, almost unable to stay in the place he once called home, "come on Darl, we gotta get out of here, it's not safe-"

"That son of a bitch!" She suddenly stood up, kicking an unrecognisable object that turned out to be a deformed metal side table that did not react kindly to her food, "ow!"

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down-" Morgan was suddenly by her side as she almost comedically hobbled on one foot, half tempted to kick the table again to 'teach it a lesson.'

"He destroyed everything Derek!" She turned to him, "everything I had!"

"Okay stop shouting I'm right next to you" he couldn't help chuckling before shaking his head, "wait, who?"

"Luke!"

"You think Luke did this?" He raised an unconvinced eyebrow, "Darl, it was probably just the oven being left on or a candle-"

"Look at this circle! Look at it Derek!" She marched over to the ash pile, darker than the rest, "this is where I left my stuff- this is what he set alight! I can smell the lighter fluid!"

"Yet another reason we need to leave" he tried to usher her out the door.

"Derek you don't understand-"