She doesn't talk to him for months.

Okay, it's not that long really. Nine days have passed since that God-awful moment where Derek put his foot in his mouth and she has been nothing but professional with him...

Which is exactly the problem.

Gone is the witty repartee, the risque banter. She can barely muster up a hello for the guy, much less stop for a chat on her way to get coffee.

Everybody - and he does mean everybody - has noticed. One of the downsides of working with a crack team of profilers, he supposes, because they all have this one sussed.

Prentiss shoots him a glare when she finally gets Penelope to admit what he said. She was around the last time he fucked up too and Derek has kicked himself in her presence more times than he can count.

Info on a case? It's not Derek's cell she calls now but Emily's and when he deigns to ask her if she mentioned his name - anything - Prentiss shoots him one arch of that damn formidable eyebrow and tells him everything he's known over the past excruciatingly painful nine days...

He fucked up. He fucked up bad.

It's Girl's Night Out and they are deliberately not talking about anything to do with the BAU.

It's not an unusual thing - most of the conversations tend to shy away from work when they're indulging in a drink fest but somehow-This is different.

Emily and JJ exchange pointed looks over Penelope's oh-so-apparent forced chipperness and call time on their lack of intervention.

Something needs to be done here; stat and who better to do it than her two fancy-pants profiling best friends?

They ply Penelope with alcohol - something she rarely lets happen - and finally, they get to the bottom of it.

It's not just her pride that's hurt - though, honestly, that took a pretty hefty kicking when Derek opened his big stupid mouth.

She's pissed off at the guy because, apparently, she can't have a-n-y-body. It doesn't make a difference how far out of or under her league he is - she can't have a-nnnn-ybody. And that just pisses her off because she'll be damned if she'll end up alone just 'cause Derek friggin' Morgan can't come to his senses.

She slaps a hand over her mouth after admitting that and shakes her head, murmuring a soft, "No, no, no, no, no..."

JJ looks at her. "You mean..."

Penelope slumps in her chair and takes a long drink of her Strawberry Daiquiri. The very reason she does not get drunk-drunk has nothing to do with her parents and the drunk-driver that took them off the road (she'd never get on the road after one sip, never mind a bucketful).

It has more to do with the fact that her tongue gets loose - very loose - and she has always had a limit.

She's loved him for years, she tells them quietly, ploughing forwards with thoughts she would never admit during normal circumstances.

He's her best friend, he's gorgeous, he's there for her no matter what - who wouldn't love him? But the guy is a total player and Penelope knows that. She resigned herself to that fact years ago.

Penelope is in trouble - big trouble - because as much as she's mad at Derek? She misses him too, the big jackass, and she wants their friendship back to normal please.

"You know, for someone as smart as you? You sure are dumb sometimes," Emily murmurs, gesturing to the bartender for another round.

Penelope glances up from her drink, frowning. "Sugar, I love you, but can we note that my ego is already bruised here? I don't think I can handle the crack pairing of tough love and profiling just yet."

"Tough love, yes," Emily grins, "But profiling? Not even close, PG. If this was me with Rossi, or Jayje with Reid, you'd have noticed years ago and have us married off with 2.4 children and a dog already. It's just unfortunate that it's taken Derek this long to come to his senses too."

She sobers a little at that, straightening in her seat. "You and Rossi?" It's the only thing she actually feels comfortable focussing on right this second and her two friends exchange small smiles.

"I wouldn't kick him out of bed," Emily admits, laughing. Penelope looks like she's floundering a bit though and she's so unused to seeing her Tech-Goddess-y friend in such a state over anything, never mind a guy, that she places a hand on her arm. "We're right, y'know."

Penelope makes a face, "What about Kevin?"

JJ glances at her, doing her usual JJ thing of striking the heart of the matter straightaway. "Have you even seen him at all this past fortnight?"

She shakes her head. She hasn't. She kept making excuses lest she affect him with her dark, shitty mood too.

"God." She murmurs. "What is it I do here?" Because for all her help and advice to her nearest and dearest? Relationships are not her forté. Truly.

"Go talk to him," JJ advises gently.

"What, now? While I'm-" she gestures to her rapidly sobering self. "Drunk-and-Admitting-Feelings-Gal?"

"Your next drink is a coffee," Emily promises, "And there's no time like the present."

They ply her with coffee and bundle her into a cab with silly, hopeful smiles on their faces, making her promise to text them once she reaches Derek's to let them know she's okay.

They're like her Fairy Godmother's or something, she thinks, just as the cab turns the corner onto Derek's block and surreal kicks in.

She's suddenly glad for the alcohol because she really couldn't do this sober. For all their assurances, she's not sure how he's going to react and that scares her to death. What if he just wants to be friends? What if-

Penelope groans, making the cab driver glance at her warily. "You vomit, you pay," he tells her, bringing new meaning to the word surly.

"I'm not gonna vomit," she promises. Well, she doesn't think so. She's at least 85% sober now but her stomach has tied itself in knots. God.

She pays the cab driver as he pulls up a couple of feet from Derek's place and gets out, smoothing down her dress as she walks. She's hoping she'll know what to say when she sees him because she sure as hell doesn't now and she lifts a hand to knock at his door when she hears a car pull up behind her.

She turns and her heart drops into her oh-so-expensive shoes.

There's Derek, alright, and she's sure now that she loves him, player or not.

Player, definitely, because he's getting out of his car with some girl.

She panics. And the first thought that enters her mind is that she should dive into the shrub outside his house. She doesn't get time.

He glances up, sees her there, and his damn face lights up as if she just made his night. "Penelope?"

He breaks away from the girl, jogging up the couple of stairs to his door and Penelope realizes two things.

One? Is that she hates him. Really, really hates him for making Emily and JJ think he's come to his senses (whatever they were).

And two? The butterflies in her stomach have made their bid for freedom and crawled right up into her throat.

She's gonna vomit.

Which she does.

At his feet.

As if this weren't bad enough? He drops to his knees beside her, rubbing her back and holding her hair and being all best-friend-y in front of the girl he clearly has designs on sleeping with tonight.

Penelope groans because not only does she feel like crap but her bruised ego has been stomped right into the ground. She wipes a hand over her mouth, glances up to find the look of concern from both Derek and his new playmate, and almost definitely wants to slap somebody.

Maybe herself.

"Let's get you inside, Mama," he murmurs, helping her to stand.

It's too much. Penelope almost tells him that he's the biggest jackass ever - the rub there being that he's not - and shakes her head. "I-I just came to-It's not important. I have to go."

The world spins a little as she pushes past Derek and his plaything and she hears him murmur something to his girl before he jogs closer to her, catching her wrist. "Penelope-Hey."

He stops her in her tracks. "Baby Girl, come inside. You're sick."

"I'm not sick, Morgan," she snaps, wielding her clutch like armor which she will definitely bring down over his head if he starts. "I'm drunk. I'm drunk and I'm an idiot and I really, really want to go home right now."

He looks like he wants to add something to that but he doesn't. Just nods and fishes his car keys from his pocket.

The ride over is awkward personified. He keeps looking at her which is really disconcerting and the full car is kinda spinning.

Strawberry Daiquiri's are her favorite drink ever but seeing them in reverse? Not so much fun.

He pulls up at her place and she thinks that's gonna be it.

He walks her right to her door. Right past the now non-existant bloodstain, guiding her by one hand at the small of her back.

She's too tired to argue. She's afraid that if she says anything, she'll say something wrong and she really can't handle that look of pity on his face when she tells him - hey, I think I love you - and he has to let her down gently.

He takes her clutch from her as they reach her door, grabs her keys and opens it, leading her inside.

"You should go," she murmurs quietly. She's uber-aware that the girl he was with will still be waiting back at his place - probably playing with Clooney, which really pisses her off, because she loves his damn dog too.

"I'm not going anywhere," he answers and she's taken back to her first night home from hospital, the first night he told her he loved her. Jackass.

"Derek, I'm fine," she goes to insist but the room spins again and she has to dash to the bathroom before she can finish that thought.

When she comes out he has her phone in his hand. Emily and Jayje calling, wondering if she's okay.

"Tell them I'm fine," she murmurs, lurching her way to her bedroom. She's pretty much hoping he takes the hint and goes home soon because honestly? He's the last person she wants to see right now.

Her mouth feels like a sewer when she wakes up.

She blinks a couple of times, trying to get the sleep out of her eyes and wonders why there's a heavy feeling where her heart used to be.

Then she remembers.

She pulls herself into a sitting position, noting the wastebasket by her bed. She's going to shower, she's going to vomit and she's going to cry - maybe not in that order.

She pads barefoot through her kitchen, almost jumps out of her skin when the voice to her left says her name.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" She demands, whirling round to face him.

His gaze softens as he stares at her and Penelope is oh-so-aware of how shitty she must look right now, last night's clothes and make up smeared all over her face. "Didn't I tell you to go home?" She asks, folding her arms across her chest.

He shakes his head, dismisses that, and holds out the coffee cup in his hand. "I was just about to wake you."

"My very own alarm clock," she grumps, taking the cup. She's at her most anti-social when she's hungover; add to that the fact that she's now the owner of a very crushed, very broken heart and she's downright friggin' surly. "Great. But that doesn't answer my question."

"Question?" Derek arches an eyebrow.

"Why are you here?"

He opens and closes his mouth, thinking better of whatever it was he was about to say. "You were sick."

"I was drunk," she amends, "As in self-inflicted? No sympathy required, Derek." She takes a drink of her coffee, painfully aware that she doesn't know what to do with her hands or, in fact, herself right now.

"I was worried about you," he admits.

She just about holds the snort in at that one. There she was, standing on his front porch ready to declare her love for him and where was he? Out on the town with some random chick he probably picked up in a bar.

"I'm fine, see?" She throws out the arm that doesn't hold a coffee cup right now. "A little hungover but that'll pass. I'm sure your girl is gonna be wondering where you are."

He looks confused at that, clearly misses the sarcasm dripping from her words, "Who, Dessi?"

Penelope makes a face behind her cup, thinking - maybe unfairly - that at least he bothered to find out her name. "Dessi, right. I'm sure her night didn't involve Drunk-Penelope throwing up all over her shoes."

He grins at that and she almost forgets why she's mad at this whole situation (damn him). "I guess not."

He waits a bit and Penelope is almost sure he's gearing up to leave when he asks, "Are we okay?"

The lump appears in her throat without warning and she looks down at her fuscia-colored toenails. "Of course."

She's saved by the bell then because both their phones start to ring.

Derek gets to his first and gives her a somber look when he's done. "Duty calls, Mama."

Her hangover makes an appearance at various intervals during the day.

She honestly thinks she's gonna vomit right when Hotch is briefing the team but by some small miracle she manages to hold it in.

He declares wheels up for the rest of the team in an hour and as Penelope's heading towards her bunker, dutifully ignoring the images of dead girls on the screen in front of her, JJ grabs her arm.

"What happened?"

The look she's giving is not the excited look of someone waiting to hear if two of her best friends realized their respective feelings and hooked up last night and Penelope is struck by the fact that Jayje can read her like a friggin' book.

"Nothing," Penelope tells her, biting back the bile that's trying to make its way out of her mouth, "Unless you count me vomitting on his current squeeze as sexy-fun-times."

JJ's eyes boggle at that. "You-He-What?"

Penelope gives her a tired smile, "Uh-huh. Derek and a new squeeze. Me vomitting... Made for an interesting end to my night."

The kind of interesting that makes her want to cry, if she's honest, but it's not like she will. No, that? She'll save for home when they haven't got an unsub and she's got a VAT of ice cream to drown herself in.

JJ squeezes her arm, looking mighty miserable herself. "I am so, so sorry. Penelope..."

Penelope holds up a hand. This whole thing is bad enough without having someone else commiserate with her too. No, she just wants to do what she's been good at for the last three years - put her feelings on lockdown and not try to eat herself up with jealousy every time the guy shows up with a new piece of ass on his arm.

"This too shall pass, Jayje," she promises, plastering a smile on her face. "You'll see."

She makes it all the way to her bunker before she gives up and vomits in the wastepaper basket at her feet.

For the first time in three years, Penelope doesn't wait for them to get home.

She's been staring at her screens, separating audio for the better part of two and a half days, she's running on java and a micro-nap and a little more java and honestly? She's feeling kinda burnt out.

She sends out a mass-text to her babies, telling them she loves them, she's glad they're home but she's exhausted and heading that way herself. She leaves Esther in the BAU parking lot and catches a cab, dropping her bags just inside her front door before she deadbolts it behind her.

She doesn't even get undressed, just flakes out on her bed and within three seconds she's asleep.

She dreams of Unsubs and the heroes that catch them.

She dreams of phone calls and victims pleading and that final, fatal gunshot.

Somewhere in her dream there's another gunshot and there, for the first time in weeks, is Jason Clark Battle.

Penelope wakes up screaming.

She doesn't feel much like sleeping after that so she pulls herself up from her bed thinking about the VAT of ice cream she promised herself three days ago when she hears the door.

She checks the peephole, surprised to find Derek standing on the other side of the door and opens up immediately. A three day case and him standing at her door can only mean one thing; this case has hit him and hit him hard.

She waves him inside with barely a thought though, technically, she'd be well within her right to be pissed at him. "Are you okay?" She asks, almost wanting to shake herself at the concern in her voice - it's not like he can't look after himself, after all.

"That was gonna be my question."

Penelope blinks, startled, "I'm-"

"Don't say you're fine," he cuts her off, "I can count on one hand the number of times we've returned home from a case and I haven't called by your bunker and none of them have been in the last 18 month."

Oh. Right. Except- "I was tired, Derek," she tells him, wishing she sounded mad and not so damned weary all of a sudden. "I haven't been sleeping."

She could kick herself for that admission. Her one saving grace is that she didn't say it to Hotch because he'd have her visiting the department shrink faster than she could blink and she's just about shaken off the guy.

"Because of Battle?"

Penelope frowns and her thought is out of her mouth before she can stop it. "Why do you know me so well?"

Because, damnit, he does know her too well. He knows her better than she knows herself sometimes and that, right there, should be another reason to hate the guy.

"It's everything," she says, suitably squirming under his dark gaze, "The case, Battle..." You,she adds silently. She is so unbelievably friggin' tired right now and not equipped to deal with all these feelings ala Derek she thought she'd dealt with years ago. "I'll be fine, I just need some sleep is all, and I'll be back to my fabulous, funky self."

He says nothing, just looks at her while lifting up the plastic carrier full of God-only-knows.

Her curiosity gets the better of her. "What's that?"

He opens the handles, giving a light, tired smile. "Ice cream. And chocolate. And Harry Potter on DVD."

Penelope steps forward, maybe a little hopefully, "The fourth?"

"The first," he clarifies, "I figured maybe you could use a little magic."

The problem with that theory is that it's not the kind of magic she wants, she thinks sourly, an hour into the film. They're at opposite ends of the sofa, a far cry from the night that started all of this bullshit, and the space between them actually, phsyically hurts.

A part of her - a huge part of her - wants them to go back to their friendship. Their risque banter, their quasi-comfortable flirting that was utterly, utterly harmless months ago.

Another, bigger part of her wants to tell Derek that she loves him despite the fact that once she does she knows she'll lose him, maybe forever, because he won't want to hurt her - that will never be his intention, but he doesn't love her like that.

She's just about resigned herself to that fact again, started to build up the walls around her heart when he stops the DVD and makes the uber-decisive move of coming to sit closer to her on the sofa. "We need to talk."

He doesn't miss the sharp intake of breath, the flash of what he thinks may be fear in her eyes.

This is by far the dumbest thing he's ever going to do in his natural life but he doesn't care. He's had it with waiting. He's had it with hedging his bets and thinking that his feelings for Penelope are going to go away any time soon.

He never believed in that whole absence making the heart grow fonder schtick except that's exactly what it did and now-He can't damn well get her out of his head.

It was Dessi who made him see, Dessi who told him what a complete dumbass he was being and Dessi who told him before she got on the plane that he needed to talk to her and he needed to do it now.

Of course, talking about it was easier.

Derek waited until he was sure Kevin was completely out of the picture before deciding to make his move only now he's here...

He swallows hard, forces himself to look at her. Hey, Silly Girl. I love you. You know that, right?

He wonders how different this all would be if he'd realized then that he loved her. Really loved her, not just loved her like a friend. There'd be no Lynch, that's for sure, none of this.

She mistakes his hesitancy for something else and he watches her shoulders slump. "Derek, look, you don't need to say anything..."

She's wrong about that and the Derek he desperately wants to be - the one that can win her over and put the warmth back in her eyes - steps up to the plate. "Actually, Princess, I do," he tells her and swallows just as hard as he did the first time.

He takes her hand and suddenly he's not nervous. He remembers his Mom telling him that when you love someone it's just right and that's exactly what it feels like right now.

He calls her Princess. It's not the first time and it most certainly won't be the last (she hopes) - it's him taking her hand that does it.

He's going to tell her that he loves her, just not like that.

He's going to tell her that she'll always be his Baby Girl, his Princess... But he's going to let her down gently and Penelope Garcia, for all her smarts, should have categorically seen this coming.

She can't do this. She can't breathe, for a start, but she can't do this; she can't let him let her down gently because that, she thinks, will actually break her heart.

And she likes her heart unbroken, thank you very much.

She goes to tell him that he doesn't owe her anything, no explanation required - even gets as far as opening her mouth when...

"Woman, shush." He shushes her with a finger on her lips. Actually shushes her too which, nine times out of ten? Would piss her off.

He doesn't let her get that far.

For whatever reason he decides that removing said finger is a good idea and replaces it with the softest, sweetest kiss she thinks she's ever had.

And Penelope blinks, suddenly able to breathe again.

"I-What was that?" She whispers, because as rejections go? That's not one!

"That," he squeezes her hand gently, "was me doing something I should've done a long time ago."

He kisses her again, more self-assured this time - the Derek Morgan she knows and loves and has, for the past three years, watched work his moves on other women.

The tight feeling in her stomach unfurls.

"That," he smiles at her, "is me doing it again."

Numero Uno, she's sure, was a mistake - despite his words, sweet though they were.

Numero Deux? What in the name of hell...

She finds her voice again, no longer a whisper. "What about Dessi?"

Derek blinks, confused, "Dessi? Here I am, making a move on a woman I should've realized I was in love with years ago and... All she wants to do is talk about my sister?"

Oh. Oh, crap. Suddenly, so many things make sense. The fact that Derek left his current squeeze to be looking after her in her inebriated state. The fact that... Wait a goddamn minute...

"Did you just-" Penelope gazes at him for a long moment, pretty sure that her heart is about to burst out of her friggin' chest which, let's face it, is gonna be messy. "Did you just say you loved me?"

And there it is. Out there.

He palms the back of his neck, a nervous trait he wasn't aware he had until right this second and-God, he's dumb enough to hope she loves him too or else he's just thrown his heart on his damn sleeve for nothing.

"It was Kevin."

She looks almost comical when she blinks like that and God, he really loves her. He loves how warm she is, how wonderful. He loves how beautiful she looks, sleep-worn and ruffled or funky and fabulous, he loves how surprised she is at his admission and could kick himself a thousand times over for not realizing sooner, not itelling/i her sooner.

"Kevin?"

"I hated the thought of you two," he tells her with an embarassed shake of his head. "I wanted there to be something wrong with the guy and then when there wasn't and you guys kept dating..." His voice trails off.

He didn't want to be the guy who was glad that she was so confused about who she was dating but after a three-day case, an argument and a whole lot of looking at himself in an unflattering light, courtesy of his far-too clued up younger sister? Derek had realised that that was exactly who he was.

"I was jealous... Only by the time I figured it out, I'd already put my foot in my mouth."

"Telling me he was safe, right." She doesn't sound as pissed about that now. She sounds like maybe it makes sense or something. She sounds like maybe she thinks he's a dumbass, which he can one-hundred-and-ten-per-cent live with. "FYI? Telling an already confused woman that her not-even-a-relationship isn't all it's cracked up to be? Not the best lead-in to a declaration of love."

He chuckles, "Getting that."

"I was jealous too," she admits with a smile. "The night I embarrassed myself oh-so-fantastically by throwing up all over your shoes? I was jealous. And drunk. And jealous again. I turned up to tell you I loved you and then I saw you with Dessi... And I was torn between diving into the shrub outside your house or punching that beautiful face of yours."

Derek laughs, a hearty, belly-laugh that he thinks she's been privy to a billion and one times. If she'll have him? She'll be privy to that a whole lot more. "So you threw up instead?"

"That, I had no control over," Penelope replies, grinning suddenly.

He takes her hand and kisses it, an idiot smile on his face. She came here to tell him she loved him. She was jealous... And all of a sudden he's starting to think that maybe all his damn Christmases and birthdays have come at once.

"Silly Girl," his tone is affectionate, loving. Not at all unlike that first night he said it to her, a week after she'd been shot. "I love you, Penelope Garcia. I am in love with you. I'm just sorry it took me as long to realize."

Her cheeks flush but she's happy and Derek knows that he'll spend his entire life making that happen if she'll let him.

"It's okay, Hot Stuff," she teases as he puts his arm around her shoulder to pull her close, "You always were a little slow on the uptake."

He pretends to look wounded at that. "Woman, you slay me. I tell you I love you, that I'm in love with you, and that's all you've got to say? That's-"

He doesn't get to finish his thought. She grins first, slants her mouth over his and fairly blows his mind with what he thinks will be the first of many, many kisses between him and his Baby Girl.

"I love you too, Derek Morgan," she whispers when she pulls away, "I am in love with you. I have been for a long time..." She smiles and rests her forehead against his, perfectly content. They stay like that for a long, long moment, before she pulls back. "Now, can we get back to Harry?"

Derek laughs again and tightens his right arm around her, moving the DVD remote far, far out of her reach with his left hand. "I'm being blown off for a 12-year-old wizard?"

Her eyes twinkle behind her glasses, "Hey, you're the one who said I could use a little magic in my life."

"This isn't magical enough for you?" He taps her nose playfully with his finger, making her smile.

"It's all the magic I need," she promises, right before she kisses him again.

~ FIN ~