Disclaimer: I own nothing...
A/N: Another oneshot my loves! I have next to no muse ='( I wished it would come home because I have had some real random outbursts to write! But, alas, this is it, it seems! So enjoy and we'll see what will be mustered up next!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Finding True Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Penelope sighed; maybe replacing Kevin was the hardest thing in her life. No man wanted to know, they just turned her down repeatedly. It had been a good eight months since that ship sailed, and she was still trying to prove that she didn't need him.
She guessed that maybe the saying was right: never look for love, let love find you.
She looked up as a glass of her favourite wine was pushed towards her.
"From the gentleman by the bar, Miss," the waiter told her and pointed towards the bar.
Penelope smiled and thanked the waiter, she then watched Derek stand and approach her table. "Thank you," she said and her heart fluttered in her chest. This was the first time she had had one on one time with Derek for months. Her triad to find a man had kind of become seemingly obsessive.
"I noticed you looking a little lonely, Baby Girl," he said as put his hands to the back of the chair. "Now is this chair taken or are you still on your little man hunt?"
"You can sit," Penelope said despondently. She looked down at her drink and just felt a wash of regret wash over her. "How do you do it?" She asked, looking back up, "I mean, be able to find women. Am I that unattractive that no guy wants to look?"
"You'd never be unattractive, Penelope," He told her honestly, "You're one of the most beautiful women I know."
Penelope scoffed, "Why will no one give me a chance?" She asked him helplessly. Her heart literally pleading for him to give her some defining answer. She needed to know what she was doing wrong.
Except that words that left Derek's mouth was the clear truth, not the answer she was after at all.
"I gave you that chance with me once," Derek said as he casually took a sip of his beer. "But Lynch was your better option. What made him so much better than me?"
Penelope bit her lip, "I thought he was the easier option. I didn't think he would break my heart."
Derek nodded, pointing his bottle towards her, "So you broke mine instead?"
Penelope's eyes widened in horror. Never did she think she had the capability to do such a thing. Yet thinking about it, she did. "I-I'm so sorry, Derek," she stuttered and felt frantic. She just gathered her things and fled feeling like she was the biggest monster ever.
She had broke her best friend and kept him around. For near enough two years she had flaunted tad bits of her relationship in front of him and flirted and all along Derek had had to heal himself. For that she felt awful.
If it were the other way round she would have never had felt complete again. Watching the man she loved love another woman and be needed around the same time.
She had done the exact ultimate deed and just ignored the effect it would have on those around her.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Finding True Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Derek looked at the untouched glass of wine, and frowned. He thought that telling Penelope how he felt about that night just after she was shot, about how it had made him feel would finally lift the world off of his shoulders, but instead it felt heavier.
Feeling a growl in his chest at the anger he felt at himself for hurting her so much and so quickly, he stood up and left his beer half finished. He had to find her.
Getting out into the night air, he felt a cool breeze and realised that he did feel freer than ever before, but he felt obliged to finish what he had unleashed. He had to find Penelope and tell her how he really felt because only then would the weight that haunted his shoulders dispersed into a oblivion.
He looked right, nothing and so he turned the only other way and saw her. He watched her for a few moments, her tracks being made as she paced back and forth. He went towards her slowly, doubtfully, "Penelope," he called out.
Penelope stopped pacing and looked at him, her expression completely shattered. Her eyes looked at him, showing how pronounced her sorrow was in the aftermath of that comment.
"I thought you'd have gone home, not stood outside here," Derek said taking his jacket off and handing it to her. He saw her hesitate, "Pen, put it on, please." He told her and she just stood there. "Just because it hurt then doesn't meant I used it to hold a grudge. I couldn't do that to you."
"It wasn't my intention to ever do that to you," Penelope said as Derek gave in and put it on her shoulders for her, wrapping it around her body. "I would've given you a chance. Any day."
"It's in the past, Baby Girl. Dead and buried. Obviously the way we love each other just isn't the same and I could never hate you for that. I never lost you," He finalised, albeit a little sadly, but he felt better. "You're too beautiful and perfect not to love."
"But I do love you, Derek, but I can't risk that meaning that one day I lose you." Penelope said quickly, her voice a half sob, "You see it happen all the time. Best friends fall in love and then one day they're strangers. I can't be a stranger to you, I can't imagine that! That's why Kevin was better than you. If I lost him, I lost him and that was it. I didn't lose a major part of myself as a result. He never got under my skin, or in my veins, or wrapped himself around my brain, but you do. You're too far in my system to just take away."
It was as Penelope said those words that she realised what he had said just before her ramble. Dead and buried he had said. It was then her hope of finding true love diminished and she faltered more. Her chance had long ago finished.
"I guess that doesn't matter anymore right?" She asked and looked at him, taking his jacket off she handed him his jacket, "It's dead and buried and we're still best friends."
Derek took his jacket and watched her walk away from him.
"You actually think it's easy to bury what it is you make me feel when you're so far in my system you're in nearly every dream I have?" Derek shouted out, not caring who heard. "You're not going to walk away from this time Penelope Garcia. I did that once, I let you go to Kevin and I regretted it every day since. So if you think I'm going to do that again and regret it even more, then you can think again because I refuse to put on hold what we're both feeling."
Penelope slowly turned to him, tears streaking her face.
"I'm going to say this one more time, and hope in God's name there isn't a new man waiting around the corner," He started walking towards her, closing the gap. "I am in love with you Penelope. God it was that first day that started it and ever since for the last seven years I have just fallen deeper and deeper and God, I don't want to ever stop falling. I love the way you finish my sentences, the way you know what's on my mind, how I'm feeling, how you know what I need to do and I love how you're always there regardless. If I let you walk away from me now, I doubt I'd ever get another chance. So stop looking for any man when I'm here, waiting, and wanting to give you everything. I promise you now, you will be loved and you will forever be with me." He stopped right in front of her, "You aren't going anywhere else but home with me."
Penelope just let instinct take over and she leapt at him a little, latching on, kissing him greedily. She had no words, just actions. At the end of the day she could either grasp the moment or leave it. Penelope wasn't opting for the latter anymore.
Derek responded to her advances and matched them. Finally he felt the weight break from upon his shoulders and his heart seemed to take a normal beat. Any and all hurt he had from that day in Penelope's apartment and from meeting Lynch dispersed and he felt their chance take over.
Both of them stood outside the bar and just for once felt their true love begin to unravel perfectly around them.
She had stopped looking for love and it had found her, and with it Derek found her.
At last, it was exactly how it was meant to be all along.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Finding True Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-