Darkness engulfed you. Completely shrouded in a blackness that almost seemed other worldly. For it overtook your senses in a way that differed from the nighttime darkness you were used to in the city, when the world seemed still and put on hold once the sun disappeared from the sky. But there were still faint flickers of light dancing in the distance, reminding you that the world wasn't that far away in the dark of night. 

This darkness, however, was suffocating. As though you were somehow trapped in the darkest depths of the ocean. Falling faster than you could keep yourself afloat, and yet you could feel it pulling you down at an excruciating slow pace. One that forced you to feel the way the shadows wrapped it's arms around you tightly, causing your breaths to quicken and grow shallower by the passing seconds. The air almost seeming to escape through a small hole that must've been located somewhere in your lungs. The unnerving blackness took away your capability of sight, leaving you to feel blind to the world. Your surroundings bleak and full of nothingness as though you were simply staring at the inside of your eyelids as you slept. But you were fully awake, for you could feel your limbs thrashing around you, and yet they could barely move. Confined to the surroundings that kept you incased, pining them towards your sides. You knew you were awake... for you knew your imagination could never come up with a nightmare as frightening as this single waking moment. 

The air was thick, humid, and tainted with a strong musty scent like old rainwater stuck rotting away in a gutter. You could feel your hot breath fan against your tear stained face, for it seemed to bounce back off of a surface that hovered inches above you. The same surface that stopped your arms when they flew out on either side of you, banging your skin against something hard, slightly scratchy and faintly damp. Wood. It kept your feet at a bent position, for you tried to extend your legs, but they couldn't push past the board that seemed to keep them tilted as your right hip lay more to the side, still trying your best to keep your back flat. You were trapped, in not only the suffocating darkness, but in a distinctively designed structure that encased your terror filled body. 

Your skin felt hot, sticky with sweat as the droplets coated your neck and slid down your temples from your damp hairline, like teardrops running down a window pane. The skin beneath and around your eyes, however, was stiff. For the salt of your tears and the pain of your cries trailed down your face like acid yet dried like paper mache. Tightening your flesh to were it felt like you were ripping paper from freshly dried glue, with every blink of your burning and watering eyes. But the worst sensation to plague your skin, was the itching. The unbearable urge to run your fingernails over every inch of your troubled body. For dirt, was sifted all over your body like a light dusting of snow. But unlike the beautiful flakes you loved in the dead of winter, the soil that coated you was heavy and itchy and made you feel as though you were just aching to crawl out of your own skin.

It was everywhere, staining your clothing that you luckily could still feel adorning your shaken body, and everywhere underneath. Lost in the crevices beneath the ripped and soiled fabrics, sticking to your sweat coated skin like sand on your bare ocean damp feet at the beach. It made your eyes burn as it was dusted across your face, in your quickly fluttering eyelashes, past your quivering lips that had been screaming when it fell upon you. You felt with each shallow breath you tried to take, the feeling of the scratching soil in your throat. If it wasn't bad enough to feel as though you were choking on the dense and dark air around you, the dirt in your windpipe would surely do it.  

Your legs burned as they began to tingle from the prolonged uncomfortable and cramped position, but there was something protruding against your right hip, that was making the bone hurt worse than the cramps in your legs. Moving your right hand away from the solid wood that it rested upon, feeling it scratch as you pulled it away, you reached down towards your back pocket. It wasn't an easy feat, as your hand only had mere inches to move and you couldn't tilt your legs for easier access. But after struggling in the darkness to find the opening of your pocket, and slipping your fingers tentatively into it, they brushed against the smooth surface of your cellphone. The heavy thumping in your chest grew deeper, as a rush erupted throughout your entire body, relief perhaps, at the astonishing discovery of the phone you were sure your abductor must've taken. But here it was, hidden and pressing into your side. A saving grace tucked away.

Your fingers shook as though you were drenched and standing out in the middle of a frigid winter night, and you feared that the phone would simply fumble between them or slide out of your palm that was too slick with anxious sweat for your own good. But you held onto that electronic as though it was the only thing keeping you alive, and you knew it very well may be soon. You couldn't lift your hand, to bring it to your chest and closer to your face. Only able to tilt it forward slightly and crane your neck to your right side to see the screen clearly. When your finger pressed the power button, the bright blue light was blinding. Causing you to nearly drop the phone from the shock at the burning behind your eyes from the sudden burst of light, blinking and squinting best you could to find the ability to look towards the screen once again.

Your thumb had to reach to press the green dial button as it was on the far light hand side of the small screen, feeling it stretch the tendon, as your thumb shook against the button until your pad finally fell flat against it. The battery was low as it turned to pale yellow in the upper right corner, and a single bar blinked as it strained to find any sign of a cell reception. But pressing the first number on your speed dial, you prayed the call would connect.

The sound felt distant, almost lost as it echoed inside of the confining space. The ringing making your heart palpitate with anticipation and the fear that hadn't yet to ease or leave your system, and your stomach felt like it was being twisted and tied into the tightest knot possible. Until a single sound broke through the faraway ringing noise, and with it came a rush of air into your constricted chest. 

"Baby," It was as though you were drowning in the darkness, and his voice was the hand to pull you out of the crashing waves. For you could feel the air flooding into your burning lungs, although tainted with the suffocating soil and scent of mildew, it was the first moment since you had been confined into this wooden prison, that you felt a true deep breath enter your body. "baby, can you hear me? Are you there?"

"Derek..."

Your voice sounded frail, as though your will and soul had been completely shattered. It was cracked and hoarse as the dirt burned where it sat against your throat, and it sounded pained as the sobs were slowly grabbing hold of your body once again. Returning now at the sound of Derek Morgan's voice and the overwhelming emotion and fear that coursed like blood through your veins.

"It's me sweetheart, can you tell me where you are?"

Much like your own, there was an ache to the tone of Derek's voice. A longing that made your chest heave with a pain unlike any other, as though part of what made the racing muscle inside of you beat, was somewhere else completely.

"No," You croaked as tears slowly began to fall from your eyes, and glide with ease through the dirt and grime coating your cheeks. "no, Derek, I don't--I--I..."   

"Hey, hey, that's okay." His voice seemed so far away that the space felt deafening. But although his voice felt small and distant in your cramped surroundings, his words and the comfort that always seemed to find it's way into them, was loud as though he was close. For although you knew the completely calm demeanor in his tone was an acting job he should win an award for, it still wafted over you as it floated through the phone, and it was a warm weighted blanket wrapped around your shivering shoulders.

"We're gonna get Garcia to track your location alright, she's already on it, we've just got to keep you on the line for her to get the location, alright?"

"Okay," Your voice shook, as badly as you tried to keep it still. Wanting nothing more than to match the calmness in his own tone, even if it was only a façade to help keep your fear at bay. But there was no concealing the trepidation or the pain in your voice. 

"Okay, now can you tell me anything about your surroundings? Anything about where you are right now, where he took you?"

"It's dark," You breathed out in a wavering breath. "so dark. And the air, I can barely breathe it's so thick and stuffy."

"Are you in a room? A cellar?"

"No," You cried out softly. "I'm covered in dirt. It's all over me, in my clothes and all over my skin. I can barely move my hands enough to scratch it off of me. And my hands, when I reach them out towards my sides, or above me, or even below me where my back lays, they're met with rough wood. I can already feel the splinters underneath my fingertips."

"What else baby?"

You let out a sob, unable to contain the cry any longer. "Derek, I'm in a box."

"A box?" He repeated louder, as though he had misheard you through your sting of strangled tears.

"He buried me alive Derek."

The silence that followed was tumultuous; feeling so overpowering as though you had been left alone all over again. And you could feel it in the sickening swirl of your stomach and the overwhelming fear that lurched inside of your chest, the returning sensation of falling fast through the dark abyss he left you in. Like you were hurdling through an endless black hole towards your bleak demise. But just as Derek's voice had saved you the first time, that same hand reached out. Grabbing hold of your flailing hand just in time to keep you from plummeting.

"Do you have any idea of where he took you? Anything you remember about your surroundings outside of the box you're in now?" His voice was different now. Gone was the soothing demeanor of his calming tone, replaced by a strained rasp that told you one thing. Derek Morgan was scared. 

"I was unconscious," You breathed out, feeling a tightening in your chest as you took small breaths of the thinning stale air. "but I opened my eyes just before he put the top on. I remember the sky feeling so far away, like I had shrunken into the ground. The sun shone through the tree branches that towered over me, and the light sparkled. Like I was looking through one of those kaleidoscopes."

"He took you to a wooded area, what else can you remember?"

Swallowing deeply, your eyelids fluttered softly. Feeling heavier than they did before, as though sleep was trailing behind them. "Birds singing," You whispered. "and the smell of the wind. It blew down, past the walls of dirt confining me into the ground. It felt like the mornings we would take walks in the park Derek, and the sun felt so warm on my skin--"

"Baby, you've got to focus for me alright, was there anything about the place in the woods he took you that was distinctive? Something unusual, different, anything?"

You could hear the desperation in his voice, dripping like the teardrops from your burning and fluttering shut eyes. His tone was distressed and rushed... fearful. And behind his words, you swore you heard the faintest tremor breaking through the collected demeanor of his mannerisms. 

"There was a trickling noise, like little patters of rain. It wasn't very loud, but I could hear it. Until he placed the top over me, and then everything went silent. Except for the thuds."

"Thuds? What kind of thud?"

Running your tongue over your chapped lips, you coughed dryly before responding. Feeling as though every breath you inhaled was through that of a tiny plastic straw. 

"The sound of his shovel hitting the wood." You whispered in a shaky exhale. "It sounded like thunder, followed by the heavy pounding of the next pile of dirt landing on top. The sound grew fainter the longer it went on, the dirt was so heavy it drowned out any sound. But it slipped through the cracks in the wood, and I felt like I was being showered in it. I was gagging on it and screaming at the top of my lungs," Another throaty cough escaped you, as your eyes shut gently. Feeling relief at the relaxing sensation of your eyelids fluttering closed. "I tried to push and kick against the wood, but I couldn't lift my legs or arms enough to even make a dent."

"After a while, the dirt stopped filtering in and even though all noise had already disappeared, I had never been trapped in a silence that suffocating. It was like I wasn't even in this world anymore, like I was stuck in some sort of void beyond anything."

Derek's voice rang through the box, pulling you from the floating cloud that it felt like you had begun to rest upon. Removing you from the light and airy feeling, the sensation of slowly leaving the darkness, and slamming you right back down into the harsh reality you laid trapped in. 

"Garcia was able to ping your phone near the closet phone tower just off of the highway, outside the start of the nearest woodlands, but she can't triangulate where in the woods you're calling from. But we're in route right now, and we're going to scour every inch." His tone was rushed and out of breath, as though he was running or had been. His breaths as heavy as the frightful feeling hidden in his tone.

"Derek--"

"We're almost there baby, I've got Hotch driving as fast as the car will go. Just hold on alright, I'm gonna be there really soon."

"Derek?"

You didn't know if he could register your voice anymore, as it barely made it past a whisper tone. Your head was clouded, lost and exhaustion was beginning to overtake your body. The tightening in your chest and constant fight for each new and clear breath growing harsher and harder by the passing seconds. And so, although you could barely comprehend the words that fell from the tip of your parched tongue, you spoke with not your mind, but the words in your heart.

"Yeah baby," The sound of his voice felt like it was floating away from your grasp, but even so, the calming effect of his words made your lips unconsciously curl softly. A smile brimming against your cracked lips from the way it still felt like he was whispering the words right into your ear. The faint tickle of his breath, the warmth of his arms wrapping around you, and the tone of his voice like a healing balm to all of your possible wounds.

"I love you," You murmured, as the soft smile you wore slowly grew with your words.

"I love you too," He replied back without any ounce of hesitation, and although his voice was still hurried and overwhelmed, it didn't lack the sincerity it always held. "Hotch just pulled the car over alright, we're almost there, just--

"Will you stay with me?"

Without a second of silence in-between, Derek's answer floated through the box and held tightly to your racing heart. "Always."

"I don't want to be alone," Suddenly, your body didn't feel quite like your own anymore, as though the deepest part of yourself was floating upward and lifting all of the anguish and fear from your body. You couldn't feel the pain anymore, you couldn't feel the terrorizing fear. You felt peaceful, and with the sound of Derek's voice covering you in a blanket of comfort, you allowed yourself to rest.

"You're not alone, I'm gonna stay on the line the entire time alright. I just need you to hold on for me sweetheart, just hold on till I can get to you, alright, can you do that for me?"

"Baby?" Derek paused and pulled the cell phone from his ear, looking down at the screen and seeing the disconnected message. And with it, the sinking of his heart into his stomach. 

"Damn it, her battery must've died." He growled as he shoved it into his back pocket as he turned to Hotch.

"We've got Rossi searching the North side, Prentiss searching the South, JJ on the East and Reid's out with the search dogs in the West, did she give you any indication of what direction she might've been in?"

Derek raked a nervous hand over his scalp and down to wrap around the back of his neck, before exhaling deeply. "She mentioned the sound of trickling, like rain. There must be a creek or a brook somewhere in these woods, right?"

Hotch was already dialing Garcia before Derek had the chance to finish his thought. "We're right off the highway Garcia, what's the closet body of water you've got on satellite of the area?"

They could hear her speedy fingers typing like the wind on her keyboard, before her voice shouted through the phone. "There's a stream straight ahead of you, about a half mile!"

Derek's feet were already pounding the forest floor before Hotch had the chance to hang up. He couldn't hear anything except for the thumping of this pulsating heart beat inside of his anxious chest, his pulse racing as his legs bolted ahead. Dodging below the low hung tree branches and side stepping large fallen stumps or rocks hidden beneath piles of old and rotting leaves. The sun was low as it was in the midst of setting over the horizon, and it's rays shone blindingly through the branches. The rich marigold yellow hue overwhelming his surroundings and making him thankful for the sunglasses that hugged tightly to his face as he ran.   

He was so lost in his head, the thoughts that swirled like monsters waiting for him to fall in, that he nearly tripped over the ledge leading into the very stream Garcia had told them about. It was a little babbling brook, and as Derek willed his pulse to stop pounding in his ears, his sound soon returned. And just as she had described, it was a soft trickling noise. Like the end of a rainstorm, when the clouds exhaled the very last droplets it had left to give.  

He heard as Hotch called out for more men and for dogs to be sent over, but Derek was already low and sweeping through the loose foliage that lined the ground. Patches of grass green and unscathed, and others left bare and lifeless. Neither telling him which held the box that kept her captive. The deep greens and earthy brown tones melted around him as he hastily looked around, melting together like a mural of sorts. Blurring his clarity and causing the thoughts in his head to gain volume.

"Morgan!" Derek turned on his feet so fast that he was grateful for the traction on his boots, and bolted towards Hotch who was on his hands and knees on the other side of the flowing creek. The clear water splashed up as his heavy footsteps pounded across it, soaking the ankles of his black cargo pants, but reaching Hotch he fell to his knees. Instantly digging his hands through the fallen leaves and raised soil that Hotch was already sifting through. His fingers hitting against branches and small pebbles, feeling the wind blowing all of the sediment back against his face as he dug faster, but he didn't care.

His hands didn't stall until they scraped against a wooden surface, and brushing away the dirt, he saw the jagged dark stained wood beneath his dirty and torn hands. "Over here!" Derek called out to the men searching behind him. "We need shovels!"

It didn't take long for the dirt to be cleared, but the box was stiff and nailed together thoroughly. It was deep in the ground, as though a coffin in a grave, and he understood now why the sky seemed so far from her view. The sun had completely set since the start of the search, and now they were digging and shoveling out soil and sediment under the glow of flashlights. The light low and hard on the eyes, but Derek felt that he would be working just as fast if he had been left to the darkness of the looming night.  

"We've got to get this top off Hotch." Derek pointed out in a exasperated exhale, and grabbed hold of the left hand side as Hotch grabbed the right. And slowly, they used all of their strength to lift the thick slab of splintering wood up and tossed it into the piles of dirt that lay behind them.

And in the faint florescent glow of a single flashlight, Derek's eyes landed on a sight that took the air he was breathing straight from his lungs and left him shaken to his core unlike any other crime scene he had ever seen in his career.

She didn't look real, and a part of Derek didn't want to believe that she truly was. For her body was discarded inside of that murky wooden box as though a worthless piece of garbage, disposing of something that they had no right to in the first place. Derek could say that the blood smeared in the upper right hand corner was the first thing to catch his eye, the dark crimson smudging the rough and soiled wood like a stroke of acrylic paint across a canvas, but it was her body that left him standing frozen where his boots stood. His eyes wide as his lungs refused to inhale any once of air to keep them going, leaving him to feel suffocated by the overwhelming sight in front of him.

It was folded, reminding him of the way she would always fix the clothes he had packed away in his suitcase before he left on a case. For her legs were placed unnaturally on her side, cramming them into a bent position as though she had just barely fit. And now, as the top was lifted from her, they laid there just as they were. Flat, unmoving, cramped and tired. They didn't fold upward or try to stretch out, they stayed there as though the bones inside of them had been crushed to make sure she took up the space provided. Her arms laid flat against her sides, the edge of the prickly box brushing against her skin and he could see the faint cuts slowly bleeding like a thousand paper cuts. Her fingers gently touched against her cellphone that reflected in the shine of the flashlights from up above, the very tips of her fingers resting below the device as though it slid from her hand when her grasp finally slacked.

She had been right when she said that the dirt was everywhere, it looked as though someone had tried to completely cover her body in a layer of darkness. In an attempt to hide her away in the night. Left to be forgotten. And her skin looked as though someone had taken the time to dust her entire body in cocoa powder or frightening Halloween makeup. But as Derek looked at the smudges of deep earthly brown coating every inch of her visible flesh, he knew it was real. He knew that it was the last thing she saw, the soil around her being tossed back down on top of her. Feeling it fall through the cracks, as though water seeping through and she was left drowning in the dry and suffocating ground.

Derek could feel his heartbeat in every part of his body. It echoed inside of his ears, churned his sickened stomach, tingled against the tip of his tongue, and pounded to be freed inside of his tight chest. And although he could feel the lack of oxygen in his lungs beginning to burn away at him, and the tears in his eyes fighting to be let go, he hopped down into the hole dug and balanced on the edge of the wooden box. Kneeling down carefully and far enough that he could lean forward, and wrap his left arm around her lower back. Lifting her slowly, sitting her up in the steady and secure protection of his arms.

Her body felt heavier than it ever had before, and as his arms gently sat her upward in his careful embrace, she felt limp. As though he was simply carrying a rag doll. Her head falling backwards, as he had failed to cradle her neck as he brought her upward. And her arms hung lifelessly over the ridge of his elbows. Her fingertips not grazing up his flesh and gripping lovingly to his biceps as they had a million times before. She felt chilled, like she had stayed a minute too long in the crisp autumn air. But her skin was sticky with sweat and dusty with the soil that coated her and rubbed off on his body as he held her closer.

Derek unwove his right arm from behind her back, and slowly lifted it to cradle her face. Against the right side of her hairline lay a gash caked with dried crimson blood, the same that lined the corner of the box. His fingers gingerly brushed her tangled and matted strands of hair out of her eyes and revealed her face completely to him. Not an inch of it untouched by the soil, but even so, the beauty he had always seen was still very much there. No amount of dirt or blood could ever take way her beauty. But her features were altered under the harsh glow of the flashlights and the layer of soil. Her eyes were sunken in, hollow bags circling beneath her shut eyes. Her lips were cracked, parted faintly, and pale. And bruises danced across her left cheekbone and jawline.

"Derek," Hotch's voice cut through the heavy moment like the sharpest knife, and Derek questioned just how long he'd been crouched down like this. "we've got to get her over to the medics."

It felt as though the world had gone silent, for he couldn't even hear his own heart beating in his ears anymore. It was like someone had turned the volume completely down, and it left Derek feeling lost. His head swirling like a whirlpool, his clarity in the moment shattered into pieces as he tried to focus on his movements and the words he saw Hotch and the medics mouthing, but he felt numb. Out of body.

It took everything to peel his arms from around her body and beneath her bent knees, as he wouldn't allow for anyone else to carry her out of the ground. It had to be him. But it took Hotch and Prentiss to finally force him to gently lay her down on the back board stretched on top of the loose blowing foliage, and they dragged him back to let the medics work. Their arms holding back his own, caging him into their grasps to keep him where he stood. He couldn't hear them or even feel their tight restrain though. Derek simply watched as the medics worked in what seemed like slow motion, and tried to make sense of the actions they were taking and the words they were saying, as he watched their lips move. Until one sight finally returned his hearing, and it felt like a rush of high speed adrenaline as everything happening finally slammed back into him.

Back was the shouts of the medics and the blinding lights of the ambulance and emergency vehicles that shone throughout the woods. The blue and red flickering like spot lights dancing across the tree bark. And Derek didn't know if it was his own strength that freed him from his colleagues grip or if they had finally released him when they knew it was time, but his feet bolted forward until his knees met the forest floor in a crash that he could feel vibrating in his bones.

Her lips moved slowly, unsure as they parted and closed multiple times. And the skin just above her eyebrows wrinkled faintly as her nose twitched with the slight movement. Derek didn't need the light to find her hand that lay close to her side against the dark blue blanket, he found it as soon as his knees touched the ground. His fingers careful of the IV that ran through the vein in her hand, but still he held tightly to her in a way that made him believe he might never let go.

One of the medics must have wiped away some of the dirt from her face, for her skin was somewhat clearer. And he could see clearly now, the way her long eyelashes began to flutter against her cheekbones. They peeked open slowly, inching wider as the lights flickered in her view. And the color that Derek was met with when they finally opened, was the brightest color in the entire woods.

"Derek?"

Her voice was nothing more than a faint croak, a crack in the boisterous chaos in the woods around them. But it sounded like the sweetest melody to ever grace Derek Morgan's ears. For the edges of his lips immediately lifted, and he felt himself exhale the first deep breath he had all day. It blew across her cheek as it drifted into the air as a relief filled puff of air, not quite a laugh but somewhere on it's way.   

Derek raised his hand, and pressed it to the side of her head. Running the pads of his fingers over her knotted strands, and his thumb brushed gently against the edge of the bandage wrapped around the wound on her hairline. "I'm here baby, I'm here. We found you, just like I told you we would. You're safe now."

Her eyes gazed up at him, they were glossy and he couldn't tell if they were filling with the same tears that he held in his own eyes. For the lights around them reflected off her beautiful orbs and made them shimmer as though she did have another tear or two to shed. And as she looked up at him, he couldn't be completely sure that she could even really see him, but it didn't matter to him. She could be staring straight past his gaze and up at the starless night sky hung high above them, and it wouldn't even bother him. She was alive, and that's all Derek Morgan cared about in that moment. She was safe, and after that, everything else came second.

A/N: Ahhh!! I am bursting with excitement because my first ever Derek Morgan One Shot is up, and I can honestly say from the deepest part of my heart... that this one shot is one of the greatest pieces I have ever written. Period. And wow oh wow is it a long one! It's without a doubt the longest piece I have ever written and I am shocked by the length! (Over 5000 words to start this book off right! Although I can't promise all my pieces will be anything close to this length!) I wanted this story to be as perfect as it could be, so I didn't restrict myself. I didn't force myself to cut down on anything or rush through any scenes or even limit myself to a specific length. And I am still so shocked and overwhelmed with pride over the finished piece! I loved writing this piece and I love reading the finished product! It flowed out of me, every paragraph, every line, every beautifully painful line of dialogue, I let it flow from my heart onto the page.

I decided to write a Derek Morgan One Shot book after falling hopelessly in love with his character, and realizing that there were not enough books out there focusing on him and everything his beautiful character has to offer. He is such a deep and layered character that I can already say I love writing for. I love the different dimensions of his character, from the obvious swoon worthy "baby girl", make you melt smile and overwhelming charisma and charm, to the darker and deeper parts of him that make him vulnerable and troubled and human. I am so excited to explore his character and all of the writing opportunities that he brings!

I hope that you all loved this first one shot as much as I do, and that you will continue with me on this journey!❤