Premise- This chapter takes place during season three and starts immediately following the scene where Derek learns that Penelope is dating Lynch. This knowledge comes from JJ and is given to him in front of Prentiss and Reid. He walked off right after.

This happened in episode fourteen of that season. In a deleted scene, available on you tube, for this episode Penelope is very jumpy and asks Derek for personal space and to be allowed to have a private life. I think that, along with Lynch going to Rossi to discuss dating Penelope, is to allude to the fact she either slept with Lynch the night before or is just about to do so. This is only five episodes after she was shot.

This story is very angsty. It has six chapters.

You Know That, Right?

Chapter One

Oh hell no.

Those three little words hissed through Derek Morgan's brain as he digested what he had just heard. His baby girl had a man in her life....in her freaking bed, probably,....and he had no clue about it. He felt a myriad of emotions as he headed to her office.

Pissed off. Hurt. Betrayed. Stupid. Foolish. Ignorant. His skin steaming hot. His insides icy cold. His jaw clenched and his stomach rolled.

He felt wrung out. Twisted up. Torn to shreds.

When it came to Penelope Garcia she always seemed to take him places no other woman could and they still hadn't even shared a real kiss. They met at work four years before. At first she was just the cute new girl at the office but over time she became the bright spot in his day, his best flirting partner ever, and his closest friend. She was the only woman he could hold in his arms and feel like he was loved by her. Every other woman was just someone he dated for a while or was buddies with....he didn't get his heart involved with them.

That was where he screwed up. He let her mean too much to him. If he hadn't he wouldn't hurt like this right now.

Just a couple months back he had believed that letting himself fall in love with her was the best thing he ever did. Even if he wasn't sure he did it. There was no doubt he had fallen in love but it felt out of his control- not a conscious decision.

He was actually kind of scared of the whole thing but excited too. They got really close- taking everything between them to a new level- around the time when she was shot by a perp who used the cruelest method to get his opportunity to try and murder her. He pretended to be romantically interested in her.

Battle coming into their life was the most painful thing they ever faced together. But it also- so Derek had believed - got them past pretending that friendship was enough. That happened for him before the bullet even went into her. As soon as she told him she had a date with another man the wheels in his head started turning, screaming "This isn't right!", and soon he was asking her to go out with him instead. He learned a lot about his baby girl on that day.

When he saw her laying in a hospital bed he learned he could not ever get over it if she died. She was the game changer in his life. He was hers. It was time to let her know and pray she felt the same. Pray she wanted him just as bad.

He hadn't prayed as much in twenty years- since Carl Buford took him to a cabin and he prayed for God to make it stop- as Derek prayed over Penelope around that time. Before she was shot, while she was in the hospital, and after she came home. He kept praying she would recover- physically and emotionally- and be his sweet, funny, sexy, confident baby girl again.

Even if she didn't go back to who she was before the shooting that was okay though. He would still love her. Whoever she became he would love that woman. Just as long as he could be with his baby girl- her smile, her touch, her eyes on his, her voice on the other end of the phone.

God, she meant the world to him and now she had hooked up with some other guy. After Derek said he loved her! The only woman he ever said that to and meant it, instead of using it to get sex. He hadn't done that in a good ten years but back in college he wasn't quite the man he was today. He was just a player who never connected emotionally to anyone.

The BAU, in general, and Penelope, in particular, changed all that. He had people to bond with at a level he hadn't allowed since Carl Buford touched him. And he had her. She would make him laugh and she would make him see the good in an evil world.

He had actually thanked God, just two months ago, for her. And he had been crazy enough to think she was his gift on this earth.

His own personal salvation.

But he was fooling himself, he knew now, cause she was involved with another man. If he heard this a year ago he would have been okay with it. He was playing the field and didn't intend to settle down. She was special to him but he couldn't offer her anything- back then.

Now he thought they were right on the edge of something epic. What a dumb ass I am, he said to himself as he pushed his way into her office.

"Hey," he gritted out.

She spun around from her computer and jumped to her feet. Looking very jittery. "You snuck up on me!"

Looking at her he knew she had a very guilty conscious.

What in the hell? he asked himself. Just how far has she gone with Lynch? And why did she go there? What was that great about Lynch?

"You should know, Garcia, that Lynch is in with Rossi right now."

"What? Why? What is he doing? I need to go! Sorry, Hot Stuff, for running out on you."

Derek moved to block her path. "Hold on a minute....."

She stopped in front of him but he could tell she wanted to be anywhere but there. "Really, love, I don't have time to chat right now."

"You're.....are you with him, baby girl?"

Their eyes held for a long moment. She babbled out "I wouldn't say I'm with him! Its really new and I don't know what I'd call it. I told him the frat rules prohibit us from taking it anywhere. I can't believe he went to Rossi behind my back. I've got to go stop him before he ruins my career."

She ran out. Derek's hands went to his hips and he looked down.

"Hey, silly girl, I love you. You know that, right?"

"I love you too."

Derek shut his eyes against the memory.

"Damn it," he whispered.

(Of all the things I believed in,
I just want to get it over with.


Tears form behind my eyes
but I do not cry.
Counting the days that passed me by.

I've been searching deep down in my soul.
Words that I'm hearing are starting to get old.
Feels like I'm starting all over again.
The last three years were just pretend!

And I say
goodbye to you.
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew.


You were the one I love.
The one thing that I tried to hold on to.) (Michelle Branch)