Chapter Text
Karadec noticed it first in the quiet moments.
Not the flirting. Not some dramatic realization.
Morgan didn’t do subtle on purpose, but somehow everything about her slipped under his skin anyway.
It was the quiet moments.
The way she leaned against his desk while reading case files, absently stealing food from his plate like she had every right to.
The way she called him Karadec differently than everyone else – less sharp somehow, softer around the edges.
The way she looked for him first after solving something brilliant, eyes bright with excitement before she remembered herself and looked away again.
And maybe none of that would have mattered if Lucia hadn’t come back.
That was the real problem.
Because Lucia returning should’ve fixed things.
Instead, it ruined them.
--
“You’re happy,” Daphne told him one afternoon.
Karadec looked up from his paperwork.
“What?”
“With Lucia. You look happier.”
He almost answered automatically.
Yes. Of course.
Instead, the words snagged somewhere in his throat.
Across the bullpen, Morgan was sprawled across a chair sideways, arguing passionately with Oz about whether a suspect’s dog recognized scents emotionally or behaviorally.
Her hands moved wildly while she talked. She was smiling so hard she looked breathless.
Karadec stared too long.
Daphne noticed.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
He looked away immediately. “Don’t.”
But it was already there now. Out in the open between them.
Daphne’s expression shifted into something almost sympathetic.
“That bad?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, “I am with Lucia.”
“That’s not was I asked.”
He hated that.
He hated how everyone around Morgan eventually started seeing too much.
--
Lucia kissed him like she remembered him perfectly.
That was part of what made this unbearable. She knew him. Knew the old versions of him too.
Knew how to calm him down after a difficult case and how he took his coffee and which night meant nightmares were coming before he even admitted it himself.
There was history in every touch.
And there should have been comfort in that.
Instead Karadec lay awake beside her staring at the ceiling while she slept against his chest and thought about Morgan laughing in the precinct earlier that day.
It was sick, honestly. Cruel.
Lucia shifted sleepily. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Lie.
He closed his eyes and immediately he saw Morgan.
Morgan standing too close beside him while looking over evidence. Morgan bumping her shoulder into hiss after a long shift.
Morgan falling asleep in the bullpen one night while waiting for lab results, curled up impossibly small on the couch beneath his coat.
That had been the moment he realized he was in trouble.
Not because he wanted her.
That would’ve been manageable.
No, the problem was that seeing her exhausted made something painfully tender bloom inside his chest.
The problem was that when she smiled at him, he felt chosen.
And Morgan – god, Morgan – didn’t even know she was doing it.
--
Lucia met Morgan properly two weeks after she got back together with Karadec.
He had been dreading it in a vague, irrational way he couldn’t quite explain even to himself.
Morgan arrived late to the precinct, hair perfectly styled as always, muttering apologies while juggling three coffees and an armful of files.
She nearly walked directly into Lucia.
“Oh – sorry.”
Then Morgan looked up. And froze.
Karadec watched recognition happen in real time.
Lucia was beautiful in a polished, effortless way. Elegant coat, composed smile, the kind of woman people naturally moved aside for.
Morgan suddenly looked younger somehow.
Messier. Human in all the ways Lucia never allowed herself to be.
“You must be Lucia,” Morgan said.
Lucia smiled warmly. “And you are Morgan. Adam talks about you constantly.”
Karadecs stomach dropped.
Morgan blinked once.
Then she smiled too brightly. “Hopefully good things.”
“All brilliant things,” Lucia said easily.
Morgan laughed softly, but Karadec caught the flicker before she hid it.
That tiny collapse. That tiny hurt.
And suddenly he knew.
Morgan loved him.
That realization split him open so violently he almost couldn’t breathe.
Because if Morgan loved him too, then this thing between them stopped being harmless.
It became real.
Dangerously real.
Morgan glanced toward him finally, and for one horrible second everything showed on her face.
Want. Panic. Hope. Grief.
Then she buried it. Just like he did.
“Anyway,” she said lightly, lifting the coffees, “I come bearing caffeine and psychologically questionable life choices.”
Lucia laughed.
Karadec couldn’t.
Because he was watching Morgan carefully avoid looking directly at him now, and it hurt far too much for something that technically didn’t even exist.
--
After that, things got worse.
Because now he knew.
Every glance lingered too long.
Every accidental touch felt loaded.
Every joke between them carried the weight of something unsaid beneath it.
And Morgan started pulling away.
Not in an obvious way. Nobody else would notice.
But Karadec did.
She stopped sitting on his desk after hours.
Stopped calling him first when she got excited about breakthroughs.
Stopped looking at him like she forgot herself for a second.
It felt like losing something he’d never actually had.
One night they ended up alone in archives searching old case files while soft LA rain hammered against the building outside.
Morgan stood on a latter reaching for a box overhead.
“You’re gonna fall,” Karadec said.
“I am very fine. Thank you.”
“You always say that seconds before disaster hits.”
She snorted quietly.
Then the ladder slipped slightly.
Karadec caught her instinctively around the waist.
Everything stopped.
Morgan’s breath hitched.
His hand was still on her.
Too warm. Too familiar.
For one suspended second, she looked directly at him, and there it was again – that unbearable openness she usually hid so carefully.
Karadec realized suddenly that he could kiss her.
Right here.
And she probably would let him.
The knowledge wrecked him.
Morgan whispered, “Adam…”
No one ever called him that anymore.
Not like this. Not softly.
His grip tightened before he forced himself to let go.
Morgan stepped down from the ladder immediately, putting distance between them.
Her cheeks were flushed now, eyes bright with panic.
“We should finish,” she said too quickly.
Karadec stared at her.
At the way her hands now trembled slightly while organizing files.
At the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes anymore.
“You ever gonna say it?” he asked quietly.
Morgan froze.
“Say what?”
He almost laughed at that.
Instead, he stepped closer.
“You know what.”
Morgan looked at him then and the expression on her face nearly destroyed him.
Because beneath all the fear there was longing so obvious now that he didn’t understand how he’s survived beside it this long.
But Morgan shook her hand once.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Her voice cracked slightly. “Because you’re with her.”
Lucia.
Reality crashed back in instantly.
Karadec looked away first this time.
And that was the answer, wasn’t it?
Morgan swallowed hard.
“You don’t get to stand this close to me and ask me for things you already know.”
God.
Every word landed like a bruise.
Karadec dragged a hand through his hair, exhausted suddenly. “I just need—”
“What?” she interrupted softly. “Permission?”
The silence that followed was devastating.
Because yes.
That was exactly what he’d been waiting for.
For Morgan to say it first. To make the impossible choice for him. To give him a reason to burn his life down.
Morgan laughed once, small and miserable.
“I’m not doing that to you.”
“You think I don’t feel this?”
“I think,” she whispered, “that if you really wanted me, you wouldn’t still be going home to her.
That one hurt because it was true.
Morgan’s eyes were glassy now.
“And I can’t keep being almost something to you, Adam.”
Almost.
That word hollowed him out.
Then Morgan stepped around him carefully, like touching him might ruin her completely, and walked out of the archives without looking back.
Karadec stood there alone among dusty old case files while the rain battered the windows.
And for the first time since Lucia came back, he allowed himself to admit the truth:
He was already in love with Morgan.
And he was going to lose her anyway.