Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.
"The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other." – Ashleigh Brilliant
o o o o
May 19, 2010
"Good morning, Pretty Girl," Derek Morgan smiled at Penelope García, his suit covered with a plastic dry cleaners sheath in one hand and a cup from Starbucks in the other. He put the cup down on Reid's desk and laid his suit over the back of the young genius' chair.
"I'll show you a good morning, Hot Stuff," García grinned in their usually morning banter. They repeated the same exchange every morning and the routine was comfortably familiar. Morgan slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him, pressing a kiss to her temple.
"We still on for lunch, yeah?"
"Of course we are," García nodded as he picked up his coffee and suit and headed off in the direction of his office. She frowned a little and tilted her head, watching the agent walk away.
"Morning, García," Dr. Spencer Reid greeted her as he dropped his messenger bag next to his desk and took a sip of his coffee. "Happy birthday."
"Thanks, Reid," the redhead beamed, engulfing him in a hug that nearly spilt his coffee down the front of his crisp purple shirt. "Do you like my birthday dress?"
"Uh… I… uh…" Reid sputtered as she turned around, trying to absorb her outlandish outfit. García's dress was a bright, neon green and covered with sparkling rhinestones, which was blinding in its' own right, but the neon pink feather boas sewn to the bottom of her dress, both the Seventies style bell-cut sleeves, and the neckline amplified the effect. A rhinestone encrusted pink belt cinched at her waist and the pink silk peony with silver feathers erupting from the center of the flower clipped in her hair completely the look, launching the effect far beyond 'outlandish' straight into plain bizarre.
"The correct answer, Dr. Reid, is 'García, you look stunning.'"
"García, you look stunning."
"You're such a good parrot," García laughed. "No wonder Luce loves you so much."
"I hope she loves me for more than my ability to repeat sentences correctly," he joked as he bent over and reached into his bag, pulling out a box wrapped in brightly coloured wrapping paper. "This is from Calliope."
"Present! Luce sent me a present? She gives the best presents! Gimme! Gimme, gimme, gimme! What is it? Oh, tell me!" García snatched the box out of his hand and started shredding the orange wrapping paper. "No! Don't tell me! Close your mouth! Oh my gosh! Pretty!"
"You're like a kid in a candy store, PG. Got a birthday present already?" Emily Prentiss tossed her purse on her desk, dislodging the phone in the process, and looked over García's shoulder to look at the coloured cartoon sketch in a glittery purple frame. "Oh man. That's hilarious."
Ten cartoon hamsters hung out around a pool and it was more than obvious the identity of each hamster. The cute, brown Morgan hamster fought with the sandy blonde Will LaMontagne over the grill. Morgan held ribs and barbeque sauce while LaMontagne had a pot with crawfish spilling over the top. The blonde Jennifer Jareau and dark brown Prentiss hamsters lay back in lounge chairs with sunbathing wearing polka dot bikinis. The black furred David Rossi hamster floated in the pool with a glass of wine.
The brunette Dr. Reid hamster sat calmly reading a book while a small red hamster perched on his shoulders and gnawed on his head. García's red and white hamster was decked out in bulky necklaces and her ears were double pierced. She was looking over the shoulder of the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing Kevin Lynch at a computer screen and the another black furred hamster, this one obviously Aaron Hotchner, sat by the barbeque with his paws clasped together in his lap and stoically watching the chaos in a suit.
"This is totally going on the wall in my office," García's red mouth was curved up in a huge grin and she hugged her prize. "I like that Calliope drew herself eating your head."
"She's nothing if not strange."
"J.J.! I got a present!" García hurried up the steps to where J.J. stood closing the door of Rossi's office behind her.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
García leaned back in her computer chair, her neon pink pumps propped up on the desk. She ran the fuzzy end of her Mickey Mouse pen over her cheek as she surveyed her collection of birthday gifts. The picture Calliope Sellers, Reid's girlfriend, had drawn for her hung above the second computer from the right. Her large collection of dinosaur erasers was now exponentially larger with the addition that was Prentiss' gift to her.
Reid's present turned out to be two books, which, of course, was just such a surprise to her that she nearly fell out of her chair. Who would believe Reid would give someone books for their birthday? This set, though, actually interested her, unlike the book about physics he'd given her last year. This was a set by Lois H. Gresh: The Science of Superheros and The Science of Supervillains.
Pink roses and calla lilies from Rossi and sunflowers from Hotch sat next to the new scrapbook pages J.J. gave her. J.J.'s first birthday present to her had been a small scrapbook and, every year since then, she gave her new pages to add. This was García's sixth birthday since she joined the BAU in December of oh-four and the scrapbook now filled two different albums since she'd run out of room in the first one. Next to the scrapbook pages, a plaster imprint of Henry's hands and feet was propped up against one of her monitors.
Last night, Kevin had taken her to dinner and given her a first edition set of the Tank Girl comics. They'd gone out last night because every year on her birthday, Derek Morgan came over and cooked her dinner. Even when García and Kevin had started dating, her actual birthday was reserved for Morgan. Usually, his celebration of her birthday started with flowers in the morning, but today he hadn't even mentioned it.
Why? García opened the drawer and pulled out her stuffed red panda that she kept in her office for super-bad cases when she needed a hug and none of the team was there to provide one. Morgan had actually given her the red panda after a particularly bad case a year after she joined the FBI.
"So you always have something to put that gorgeous smile back on your face, Baby Girl."
She loved the cat-like animal and, like Morgan had predicted, it never failed to make her smile. Except for now. Because her best friend in the entire world had forgotten her birthday.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
"Here's your junk, Junior G," García handed him a few files. "Don't spill coffee on this set or I'll make you do something for another."
"Do I want to know what that 'something' is?" Reid asked skeptically as he took the manila folders.
"When I decide what it is, you'll be the first to know. Well, actually, you'll be the second, because I'll know first. No, I lied again. I'm gonna called my favourite redhead and tell her first, well, second, because I'll know first. So Callie will know second and then you'll know. So you'll be the third to know. If I don't run into anyone in the hallways on the way to find you to tell you what I'm going to do to you. Because I might tell them too."
"That sounds unnecessarily complicated."
"It is unnecessarily complicated, Doctor, but all the best plans are."
"I thought the best plans were the ones that gave the best results with the least amount of effort," Morgan grinned as he walked into the bullpen and towards the coffee machine. "Baby Girl, do you still have the pictures from the case last week?"
"Do you need them?"
"If I didn't, why would I be asking?" Morgan looked at her funny as he poured coffee into his blue FBI mug that sported his name on a white label.
"You'll have it nearly immediately, Agent Morgan." García saluted, turned and half-stomped back to her office.
"Okay… why did García just salute me?"
"It might have something to do with the calendar," Prentiss muttered with an eye roll, pushing herself away from her desk and grabbed the file she'd just finished to turn it in to J.J.
"The calendar? Reid, what's going on?"
"It's May nineteenth, Morgan."
"Yeah? So? What about May ninetee… Oh shit," Morgan smacked his palm against his forehead. "Today is May nineteenth. Today is May nineteenth. Right now."
"Very good, Morgan. Soon you'll have you telling time and everything," Reid scoffed and Morgan backhanded his head. "Oww! Only Calliope's allowed to do that."
"Crap, crap, crap," Morgan wasn't listening. "The hockey game."
"What does a hockey game have to do with Penelope's birthday?"
"I has to DVR Monday's game against the Ducks and I watched it last night instead of the game against the Kings which was the game we played yesterday and is waiting on my DVR. So I screwed up."
"I know I'm a genius and everything, but not even I followed that."
"Chicago Blackhawks, Reid. A hockey team."
"Okay?"
"They played the Anaheim Ducks on Monday the seventeenth. I couldn't watch it live, so I recorded it. We lost by the way. I watched the game on Tuesday the eighteenth instead of the game against the L.A. Kings, the game that was actually played on the eighteenth. I haven't watched the game yet. It's still on my DVR. I screwed up. Today isn't the eighteenth."
"Of course it's not. It's the nineteenth."
"Yeah, well I know that now."
"How can you mix up the day of the week?"
"Why am I talking to you? You've never mixed up or forgotten anything in your life. The day you forget Cal's birthday or your anniversary is the day Hell freezes over. Damn it, her flowers are in my fridge, Reid. I thought it was – Crap."
"Where are you going?" Reid watched Morgan hurry towards the door out of the bullpen and into the main part of the building.
"Saving my ass, Reid. Something you'll probably never have to do."
"Been there, done that," Reid muttered to himself, looking at the picture of him and Calliope smiling at the Norfolk Zoo a year ago.
ooo ooo ooo ooo
Penelope climbed the stairs up to her apartment, reaching up and pulling the ornament from her hair. She'd ridden the subway to work today instead of driving just like she did every year on her birthday, because Derek always drove her home for her special birthday dinner. Derek hadn't been there when she'd gone to leave and nobody had seen him since the afternoon. He'd a hundred percent forgotten her birthday.
So she'd had to juggle her purse, Reid's books, J.J.'s scrapbook pages, Henry's handprints and Hotch's sunflowers on the subway home. Maybe bringing the flowers home had been a mistake. She'd nearly dropped them several times. People on the subway didn't care what you were carrying if you weren't moving fast enough.
Her shoulders slumped, she slipped her key into her lock and opened the door. Her Goo-Goo Dolls CD, Dizzy Up the Girl, was playing. She hadn't left her CD player on, had she? No. She hadn't listened to the Goo-Goo Dolls in at least a week. So who was in her apartment? Putting the flowers down, then the bag with her presents and her purse, she grabbed the mace from her side table and walked slowly into kitchen.
"I don't wanna wake up where you are. I won't say anything at all. So why don't you slide? Yeah, we're gonna let it, slide."
"Derek?" Penelope put her mace down when she saw Derek wearing her ruffled orange and purple polka dot apron and matching oven mitts as he bent down and pulled a pan out of the oven. "That smells really good."
"I should hope so," Derek put the pan on the trivets, peeled the oven mitts of and, with a potholder, lifted the lid on the pot to stir the pasta. "Sit down, Angel. I already poured your wine."
"You forgot my birthday," she pouted, picking up the white wine glass as Derek pulled out a colander.
"No, I didn't. Well, yes, but it wasn't your birthday I forgot. It was the date. I'm sorry, Baby Girl. I got mixed up. I thought it was the eighteenth."
"Are these for me?" Penelope looked at the red and pink roses in a crystal vase on her table.
"Is there someone else living here?" He joked, pouring the pasta into the colander while steam exploded from the pot.
"I was thinking about getting a cat. Does Crookshanks have any friends who need a home? They'd be spoiled rotten here."
"Crookshanks was neutered eleven years ago, Pen. And he's an indoor cat. I'd be willing to bet that, besides Clooney, the answer to that question is 'no.'"
"Shame. He's a pretty cat."
"I hadn't noticed."
"He's been yours for almost a decade and you didn't notice he's completely adorable? He's like… like this big, fat, squishy orange plushie you just want to squeeze."
"I wouldn't recommend squeezing him until you want to be turned into a scratching post. Clooney, on the other hand, would let you squeeze him for days if you gave him enough Begging Strips."
"Thank you for the flowers," Penelope smiled, sticking her nose into the roses and taking a deep breath.
"Am I forgiven?"
"Maybe. We'll see."
"What does it depend on?"
"On how good that food is. What is it?"
"Eggplant parmesan. You'll love it."
"Is that a promise or a threat, Agent Morgan?" Penelope raised an eyebrow and smirked.
A/N:
Happy Birthday to BrilliantDarkness! She's one of my dear friends and this is her birthday present! I love you loads, J, and I hope you liked your present.
Anyways - this is part of my little Criminal Minds universe that all my one-shots and my two chapter-fics [Mystery Muse (Spencer) and Cracked Concrete (Derek)] live in. I hope you like this one shot enough to check out the rest of my stuff! So, thanks for reading and, please, tell me what you think - good or bad!
Love, Thalia