Disclaimer: I do not own any rights whatsoever to the wonderful Criminal Minds franchise. Neither am I associated with the franchise, stuidos, or networks affiliated with the show. This fanfiction or any other fanfictions written by me are not-for-profit and are written for entertainment purposes only. No monetary payment is being made or received.

Undisclosed Insubordination
by Bren Gail

Penelope Garcia thoroughly fed up with every aspect of not only her job, but also now her personal life, growled in frustration and threw her hands up as if in emphasis of that feeling. Her car keys flew out of her right hand, and landed several feet away, with a loud clink and clatter on the colorful tiled floor.

The small grey, black, and blonde kitten that Rossi had only days ago persuaded her to take in and give "a nice proper home," skedaddled quickly away from its wet gourmet kitten dinner and out of the kitchen then into the dark scary place under Penelope's bed. Penelope shook her head at the kitten's cowardice, before realizing if she were small enough to sit in someone's palm and a maniac was swearing, stomping, and throwing things around then she too would become intimidated and find a hiding spot that was not easily accessible to the craziness.

Her purple and pink sequined Otterbox™ incased iPhone™ began to buzz from its place on the countertop and she rushed to it in the hopes that it was whom she desperately wanted it to be. The caller identification crushed her hopes of talking to him when the display blinked Lynch, Kevin. She started crying. With each tear that fell from her brown eyes, her frustration grew, and what she thought she wanted diminished.

Kevin had proposed; the moment that she had been dreaming of since she was a seven-year-old flower girl to her very much older cousin, Dharma, had happened. Harsh reality had crushed the dream. She had not pictured the proposal to be at her work place in front of an elevator nor had she pictured the proposal to be done indirectly, nonchalant, or unromantic, as it had been. Moreover, she had not dreamed that a man like Kevin would do it. She loved him, but she knew that he could never compete in a beauty contest and score high.

She was not obsessed with appearances, but Mister Walt Disney had sabotaged her seven-year-old self's dreams with that of a picture of walking perfection; tall, dark, handsome, lean yet muscular, and well spoken. The famous animator had, also given her and many other young girls' beauty complexes, because if you did not look like Cinderella that automatically meant that you were one of the ugly stepsisters; no one had ever wanted to be Drizella or Anastasia and if they said, they did then they were auditioning, to be the next Pinocchio.

She sighed in disgust at her train of thought and feeling defeated she sat down at her small dining room table. Instead of feeling blissfully happy and exuberant, as she should at this occasion, she felt frustrated, confused, and depressed. She loved Kevin and thought that she wanted to be his wife and eventually the mother of his children, but after his ambiguous proposal and before the elevator had revealed her fine furry friends, she had a startling revelation; she had no clue what she wanted.

Even though, she now had no inkling of what she desired, she knew what she did not yearn for. She did not crave to be Mrs. Kevin Lynch. She did not want to move out to the country so an Unsub could have the textbook set up to torture and murder her. She did not require disconnecting from her beloved technology and she did not want to be disengaged from her friends and work which both had become hefty irreplaceable spaces in her life.

She ignored the once again buzzing of her smart phone. She spared a glance at it when she heard the two beeps signaling she had a voice mail. The smart phone now immobilized and silent, she looked at her in much need of manicure fingertips. She picked at the chipped cuticle then went to grab her phone to text Emily about the possibility of having a girl's day soon when she distraughtly realized that those could never again happen.

She broke into uncontrollable despairingly sobs upon remembering that Emily was dead; her big sister from another family altogether had become a statistic, a murder victim. Penelope silently berated herself for her stupidity and forgetfulness, how did one forget that one of your best friends were dead, why did it feel as if she weren't dead, but only taking longer to come home from a case? Penelope had no answers no matter how desperately she sought after them.

She continued to cry for several minutes, before her thoughts went another direction. She inhaled through her nose and exhaled out her mouth as if that would completely fix her problems. With a deep shaky breath, she stood and steadied herself by grasping onto the back of the chair she had just vacated.

She could not let herself be lured into the long roller coaster of depression and despair. She snubbed the temptation to succumb. She would not settle for anything less than what she deserved. She refused to be any circumstance or man's doormat ever again, because she knew that if Emily were here, she would not accept that her bright and bubbly best friend had given up or that she had let the darkness extinguish her light.

Note: Thank you all for reading the first installment of this three-part story, what did you think of it thus far? The second part will be updated either tomorrow night or early Tuesday morning. If you could spare a moment of your time and check out the poll on my profile, I would very much appreciate it! Thanks again!

- Bren Gail