Note- Based on the song Didn't We Almost Have It All by Whitney Houston. The title is a part of a line from that song. This takes part in the middle a season five.

Never Lose It Again

Chapter One

December 31, 2009

"Are you making any resolutions this year, Hot Stuff?" she asked, her eyes bright and her cheeks just slightly flushed from all the laughing they had been doing.

"Yeah, a few."

"Pray tell what do you need to improve about your gorgeous self?" Her hand brushed his chest. "You were sculpted by God to be absolutely perfect from head to toe and, believe me, he didn't miss a thing."

He flashed her a deep grin and tapped his finger against her nose to show how adorable he thought her words were. But he didn't really agree with them.

There was a lot Derek felt he could improve in his life. Starting with the way things were between them.

He was going to kiss her and nothing was going to hold him back this time. He wasn't drunk. He wasn't emotionally distraught. The world wasn't falling apart around them, as it so often did.

For the first time in a long time they were actually having fun together. It felt more right than he knew how to tell her. But he could show her.

He intended to make this night one neither of them ever forgot.

Just knowing how close he came to not showing up, to missing this heaven sent chance to kiss his girl, made Derek Morgan all the more sure he needed to give her a kiss that showed how he felt about getting to start this year off with her by his side.

This chance they had right now almost didn't happen.

For the first time in all the years that he worked at the BAU he had given serious thought to skipping JJ's annual New Year's Eve party. In year's past he would always make sure to come back from Chicago in time for it. This year he nearly stayed home and drank himself into oblivion instead.

Now that the clock was just about to strike midnight he thanked God that he had shook himself out of the mild depression that seemed to be gripping him all through the holidays (the whole team had good reason to skip celebrating this year after the death of their boss's wife hit them hard) and had brought himself to the party.

As everyone shouted out the countdown "10....9....8....7...." he couldn't help but remember that it used to be tradition for Derek to give Penelope a kiss on the cheek at midnight.

Of course that was before she went and got a boyfriend that she didn't get rid of until just recently. In fact Derek didn't learn until tonight that Kevin Lynch was Penelope's ex now. For two years it was Lynch that got to kiss her at midnight on New Year's Eve but not this year and- if Derek had anything to say about it- never again.

"6...5...4..."

Her eyes were lit with happiness. He could get lost in them for hours, days, years. He wanted to always see her this happy. He wanted to be the man that could make her this happy over and over again.

"3...2..."

They were sitting on the couch together, surrounded by friends and some strangers, in a small ranch house in the suburbs. A place they had been many times before. But never had they been as far apart, emotionally, as they were when she walked in tonight. They had let their friendship get pushed on the back burner after Foyet escaped prison.

Derek never doubted Penelope cared for him but he had started to give up hope she'd ever break up with Lynch. After a good year of thinking about how she was sleeping with that guy every night Derek was sick of thinking and sick of wanting what he probably could never have so he just put his mind onto work and barreled on for a few rough months. Head down. Rarely smiling.

He became unit chief for a brief stint. In a way that helped to make him and Penelope closer, after she fixed him an office and when he couldn't call her nicknames but she would wink at him and he knew she was okay with it, but it also made him miserable because he didn't feel like himself at all.

He reached out for Tamara, as she reached out for him, thinking maybe they could help each other somehow. Become something meaningful. After years of not wanting to be in a serious relationship Derek Morgan was finally ready.

But Tamara wasn't the woman he could open up to in that way. They had drinks a few times. Kissed by her car and at her door. Then he realized he didn't care if she invited him in or not. And that said it all. He couldn't get excited about her. About anything really.

It wasn't the first time he was depressed in his life. It came back over and over: first when he was being abused as a teen, then when he blew out his knee in college, and later when his undercover assignment was over and he couldn't figure out who he was if he wasn't that fake person he became for nineteen months. But he always got himself past the pain. And he always tried to not show it to the people around him.

This time all it took was learning Penelope was single to make his heart feel light again. He had hope once more.

Maybe he didn't know what would become of him and this woman who made his life so much better than it ever could have been if he didn't meet her. But he knew now that there was hope.

And hope was all he needed to finally smile again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Penelope couldn't stop grinning as everyone screamed the countdown to midnight. Tonight had really been fun. Derek gave her all his attention, barely leaving her side for a moment. It felt like the old days.

Better than the old days actually.

It felt like Derek understood how close they got to never having another night like this. Back before she dated Kevin her and Derek could have fun together away from work whenever they wanted. Nights at the bar, at the movies, at a party or at his house were common. Sometimes they did go months without seeing each other outside of work but they always ended up hanging out again, and feeling that old familiar stir of chemistry mixed with adrenaline, lust overlapping longing, friendship that went deep with that subtle warning to not go too far unless they were sure they could go all the way.

Moments like that were addictive.

Just when she would give up on crushing on him, vowing to just see him as a friend, a moment filled with everything she couldn't get with any other man would spring up out of nowhere and Penelope would be right back at square one.

Sometimes it frustrated her, back then, but it always happened. And it was happening again. Right now. But she wasn't frustrated in the least.

After two years of very rarely having a perfect moment with Derek it felt good to have this night that was chock full of them. To see him smile and hear him joke. Have his dark eyes filled with teasing and sex. Hear him flirting with her in that sexy, seductive tone that just begged for her to lean close and take his bottom lip between hers.

From the moment she broke up with Kevin she felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders but tonight confirmed it all. She had been right to end her relationship with him.

She needed to feel this again. What she felt when things were good with Derek. That was her life blood. It pumped through her veins and made this life worth living.

If this was a few years back, Penelope would be bemoaning the fact that she had, once again, fallen under Derek's sensual spell. But she wasn't that woman who she used to be.

Now she felt so much more confident in herself. Now she was bolder and she was stronger. Now she knew that this wasn't a chance to lust after him just to be disappointed again. This was a chance to take her and Derek where they had never been before.

Probably their last chance.

That didn't scare her though. She felt good. Ready. Excited. Lucky. Eager. All in. Happy for the first time in months and months.

2010 was going to be start off with a bang if she had anything to say about it.

"1!" everyone yelled as the clock struck midnight, ushering in the new year.

Derek leaned closer to her. She caught a whiff of his cologne and it made her head spin. He always kissed her cheek on New Year's Eve, at least before she got a boyfriend.

Penelope teased him with her eyes, daring him to bring his lips to hers, but she didn't expect him to actually do it. She figured she would have her work cut out for her to convince this best friend of hers to make them so much more.

Derek closed the last little gap between them. One of his hands cupped her cheek. Her eyes fluttered closed, waiting for a kiss to land on the other cheek.

The feel of his mouth pressing firmly to hers, as one of his arms wrapped around her back and pulled her against him, made her blood race fast through her veins, set off all her nerve endings and just about had fireworks going off behind her eyes.

He didn't deepen the kiss but he didn't need to in order to make his point clear. And just like that Penelope knew: Derek was looking forward to them being more this next year too.