Disclaimer: I own absolutely but the this plot bunny!
A/N: Spoilers for 6x18, Lauren...
So this was running around in my head since last night's ep... so sad and so damning on them all! =( And Morgan, when he tried to keep her with him, my heart broke! So here's a little oneshot of the aftermath...
Thanks to Sangreal7 for being the first reader and loving this =)
Hope you like!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- What Consumes Us -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
You can never love people as much as you can miss them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- What Consumes Us -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
He could still hear her sobs in his head. Like they were caught on a loop, never ceasing, never ending, repetitive. The entire noise was dripped with hurt, grief, need. Hearing his baby girl cry like that was never an easy feat to face, but at this moment in time, with the news just delivered his heart was literally snapping apart within his chest.
Emily Prentiss was dead. His friend, his partner was gone.
The sob broke his thought barrier again and he just did what he could, he turned and took Penelope in his arms as her grief was known amongst the others in the room.
He didn't know how long he had sat there in the small room, just holding her. Time, itself, had seemingly stopped passing around them. It wasn't until a hand touched his shoulder that reality slipped back in and made itself known on his numb body.
"Morgan, it's time we made a move," Rossi said as the others started to stand.
Derek nodded and slowly pulled away from Penelope fully, "C'mon Baby, let's go home."
He watched her wipe her face clear of the tears and she slowly, wordlessly, almost automatically grabbed her bag and stood up.
Once they left this room he knew their solidarity left, they were all on the way to grieving in their own way. He knew once they all went back to their own homes Emily's death would be something they would work through and then come the next work day life would just resume.
For tonight, they were left to their own devices and were left to mourn how they needed to.
No one spoke the entire drive back to the airstrip hours later. It was deadly silent, eerie, and dark. No one knew how to speak anymore it seemed, words seemed idle, fickle things in comparison to everything else that had happened.
Everyone retreated, took appropriate courses of actions to ease the day's events, to make sense of the loss that had them all in turmoil.
When he finally made it home he sank onto the couch and just stared ahead, ignorant of everything in his house. He just lavished the silence as much as he could.
Derek came to find that the more his mind let loose, the more it riled his raw emotions, the more he saw Emily dying in his arms, the harder it got to believe this would get better for any of them. Sitting forward he put his hands to his head and tried to stop himself for hating his actions, for blaming himself for not trying his hardest to get her to stay with him.
He blamed Emily for not being strong enough to stay with them. Even though rationally he knew her injuries were so extensive that it was out of her control. He wanted to believe she was stronger than this, almost indestructible. He wanted to believe that he could go to sleep and wake up and everything be normal. Wake up to no threat, to no problems.
He ran his hands over his head, breathing out the anger he felt towards Doyle when the doorbell went. He got up begrudgingly and answered the door, hoping it would be someone that could be sent away quickly.
Instead Penelope stood before him, her face free of makeup, her eyes beginning to swell from the over exertion of crying, her eyes themselves glassy and sorrowful.
"C'mere," Was all he said as he engulfed her fragile looking figure in his arms and held her tightly as they stood in the threshold to his house. It was then, in the arms of Penelope that he began to cry, he let the rawest form of emotion come out.
Penelope wordlessly weakened their hold and got him inside, sat him down and then sank next to him. They needed privacy and being on his porch wasn't going to issue them with that. Penelope took his hand in hers and threaded her fingers through his, still no words spoken.
"She died in my arms really didn't she?" Derek asked her in disarray. "I should've known that was my last chance. I should've known I was never going to speak to her again."
"Derek, you weren't to know," She began softly as he sought out the answers to God's will of taking their friend, "You gave her the best thing you could have." She continued, "You gave her a friend, someone she knew. You made sure that the last person she saw and recognised wasn't Doyle."
It was as Penelope spoke that one sentence that he felt he understood her fully. No one she knew was around when Battle shot her, no one she trusted was there to will her to stay with them and when the darkness consumed her wholly it was Battle's eyes as he stood in front of her, the barrel of the gun aimed to her heart that greeted her in the beginning of the oblivion before everything faded.
"So please don't say she died in your arms, because we all know she would've fought her hardest back there. She proved she was a fighter before, but sometimes," Penelope sighed, wiping her tears, trying to gain her composure, "sometimes even the strong fall."
Derek nodded his head, trying to make sense of it all and as his gaze met hers he smiled some, offering her the support and reassurance she had given him.
"Thank you," he said and pulled her into a cuddle as they sat on the couch together, "Thank you for coming here and helping me."
"We all need a little support sometimes, Handsome." Penelope told him and closed her eyes to the new onslaught of tears, "I'm really going to miss her."
"Me too," He said as he pushed a kiss into her hair, taking in her scent, letting his body consume Penelope rather than the grief that was bubbling strongly away. "Me too."
It was there, still in the near darkness that Derek let Penelope cry, and he let himself do what he needed.
Tonight, after all, was about accepting the change to life and the only way they could do that was by banding together.
He knew the days were going to be longer, the nights sleepless, the cases darker, but he knew that they couldn't lose hope.
They just had to live day to day until the memories faded some.
It wasn't until the team all stood around the casket watching as the funeral progress towards its end that all he could do was take her hand in his and thank the lord that he still had her. That he still had in his life a woman that was a pillar of support in his life, one that was never going to break on him.
However, he knew the only reason Penelope never broke or deviated from being his support was because she had him. She had her own pillar and the pair of them stood stronger together than separately.
They could let the grief consume them, but ultimately there was always a way to the light at the end of the tunnel when you had someone to help with journey.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- What Consumes Us -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-