DISCLAIMER - I don't own Criminal Minds or these characters. This is just for my own fun.
A Long Way Home
Penelope Garcia looked into the dark eyes of Special Agent Derek Morgan and the anger she saw there brought instant tears to her eyes.
"You cannot do this, Penelope."
It was an order and an expression of shocked outrage at the same time.
She shook her head, blonde curls tumbling.
"I have to, I… I can't explain it but I know that I have to," she looked up into his eyes, pleading for understanding.
His expression was nothing short of fierce and the only time Penelope had ever seen that look on his face was when he was interrogating a suspect. He had never directed it at her.
She quailed from it and looking down at her, seeing the colour drain from her face, Morgan felt his insides roil in disgust at himself.
"What are you talking about? Penelope this man almost killed Reid. He is a bad man and killing felt good to him. Why would you want to see him? Especially now?" he demanded.
She was not making sense. Her desire to visit a dangerous man who was right now on death row because of the lives he had taken without the slightest remorse was anathema to him.
His spree had stopped at her hands, she had shot him to save a beloved colleague and Morgan hated him all the more for making her do that. Violence was alien to Garcia, resorting to it even in defence caused her anguish that scarred her soul.
"I don't know why. It's like a cosmic thing, I only know that I can't close the book on this until I go. He has no one, Derek. He will die alone and it's because of me," she said. Her eyes were pools of raw emotion.
"That's what you think?"
He looked into her pained face, and if he was hoping for an answer that made sense to him he had found none, Instead he saw only sheer torment as she confronted his anger.
It gave him no pleasure to see her in distress and he felt almost sick to think he was the cause of it.
Yet he did not relent, instead he leaned closer to her, the better to press home his advantage. He was taller, stronger, exuding a controlled fury that he let shimmer just near enough to the surface to elicit her reflexive jolt of alarm.
He'd done this a thousand times, knew how to exert his body language to intimidate. Hint at the threat, suggest an internal struggle to keep a rein on it and you were wielding a potent power over the other person.
They knew you could hurt them, maybe even wanted to and would end up being so grateful to you that you hadn't that they happily offered their compliance.
Behind her colourfully framed glasses, Garcia's eyes widened, her mouth fell open but no words escaped.
"You are not to blame for this. You are putting yourself into this and it is stupid. You need to move on and it should be enough to know that Reid is alive because of what you did. You can't save everyone. And you will destroy yourself if you keep this up. I won't be a part of that," his words were as unforgiving as he felt.
As usual, the FBI technical expert was dressed in an eclectic assembly of bright colours and clashing styles. Retro chic met baby doll frothiness. It was her armour against the darkness of the world she encountered as part of the Bureau's Behavioural Analysis Unit.
Today it could not protect her from the one thing that obliterated light and air from her universe.
Damaging her friendship with Morgan was something she could not countenance. His disapproval was like acid on her skin.
Tears fell unchecked and he felt his chest tighten at the sight of them.
Penelope was his sweetness, pure of soul, untouched by even the slightest shading of the cruelty he encountered every day in his job.
Causing her hurt was like defacing a beautiful work of art. Yet the thought that she was even contemplating putting herself in harm's way was enough to make him forget to breathe.
It filled his head with white noise, it drove every other thought from his mind.
He put his hands on his hips, dropped his head, clenched his jaw and reached to bring his temper into check.
"Derek, I… I need you…" she stammered an earnest plea through her tears and he did not look up, unable to watch the hurt flow out of her.
"You do this, you're on your own," he said, finally meeting her eyes and this time, it was his turn to flinch from the naked pain he saw there.
He turned and walked away from her, heading for the conference room where the team were assembled for a briefing.
Penelope heard the words and though she knew what they meant, hearing them from him was as alien as a foreign language, as incomprehensible as a lost dialect.
She blinked several times, rapidly, to clear the tears clouding her eyes and the fog of misery that threatened to paralyse her.
She looked around the familiar entrance lobby of the BAU's offices and felt a sudden, powerful lure to return to the safe enclave of her technology suite.
Cloistered there, Garcia was queen of her domain, the world was filtered in a medium she could understand, operate in. Her computers were portals into a dimension that she could navigate with more ease and confidence than her own bedroom.
Caught in a second of indecision, Garcia glanced upwards, where her second floor sanctuary waited.
Then the letter came back to mind and thinking of it, of what she had written made her digital empire seem suddenly very far away, as though it had magically been transported to another universe she could not access.
She had to go to the prison, she had to see him. She knew that she could never live with herself if she didn't. She was not altogether certain what living with herself was going to be like once she entered a realm that seemed truly terrifying to her but the only option was to move forward.
So, she reached down, hefted the carry on case with a floral pattern better suited to a Hawaiian shirt and strode towards the doors and the destiny that awaited. Already it had cost her so much more than she wanted to pay, she thought of the scene with Morgan and heartbreak threatened to consume her.
So, she had to push it to one side, just for now, just until she found the strength to see this one, terrifying visit through.
She couldn't handle thinking of what lay ahead and the awful interchange that had just happened.
Feeling as though she was shedding her own skin, Penelope Garcia walked into the sunlit afternoon and into a waiting taxi.
In the same moment, Morgan was pulling out a chair at the glossy rosewood conference table where the BAU were gathered for a briefing on a new case.
As he took his seat, he was aware of the curious interest from his colleagues.
His body language was casual, his expression focused. Anywhere else, he would have attracted not a second's worth of thought.
In a room full of profilers, that was not possible. Though they maintained a pretence of noticing nothing, the profiler in him knew that they had picked up on the tension in him that he tried to disguise.
They were also aware of the exchange in the hallway, though the details were known to none other than Morgan himself. He was the only one who knew of Garcia's crazy mission.
You did not need to be a behavioural analyst to find the altercation a most unusual departure from the norm.
Morgan and Garcia's toothless flirting was a BAU standard. It underpinned a relationship far removed from a cheerful romance.
Soul mates was a term misused often enough to rob it of its true meaning but Morgan and Garcia's connection was the purest expression of it. She was comfort and solace to him, an affirmation of the goodness in the world, even when he faced the darkest of evil.
He was her protector, her assurance that there were those willing to stand for the innocent.
"Penelope won't be giving the briefing. She's going to be away a few days," he said, his tone business like and unaffected as he set about leading the outlining the case himself, once Hotch and the team were all present.
He offered no further explanation and they did not ask for one. He sought to delve into the details of the case and though, God knew there was enough here to distract from any other concerns, Morgan's thoughts could not clear the image of Penelope's look of devastation as he walked away from her.
Guilt sizzled in his gut and he forced it aside as a new hunt for a killer began. He was good at escaping into cases, losing himself and parking the things in his life he did not want to deal with behind a bank of work. Now, his time honoured strategy was not completely effective.
As he made his way with his colleagues from the conference room towards the stairs leading to the exit, he glanced at the darkened windows of Garcia's empty computer room.
"You put yourself in harm's way and I'll wring your damn neck," he muttered quietly to himself, love and concern wringing out his heart.
He was true to his word, Garcia thought two days later as she stared at the blank screen of her cellphone. She'd called at least three times each day since she left and sent numerous text messages, all unanswered and unreturned.
This was possibly the loneliest place Penelope had ever been. She'd visited the prison, felling that she was answering some kind of call from Fate. Then was cast into doubt when the prisoner she had reached out to refused to see her. Feeling utterly at sea, adrift from everything she believed in, she had no choice but to try one more time.
She returned to her hotel, placed another call to Morgan, got no reply, listening to the rhythmic ringing of the phone, imagining him looking at the screen and felt a little less isolated to have even such a pathetically tenuous connection to him. Afterall, in this bleak place, she had nothing else.
His machine clicked in. Feeling ridiculously happy to hear his voice, she cleared her throat at the beep.
She didn't know what she was going to say. What came out was an outpouring of emotion that she may have chickened out of saying to him had he answered.
"I'm so sorry, Derek. I came here and I didn't know what to expect, I just felt a need to have some closure.
"I don't do well with situations I can't control and this one, well, I shot a man.
"And he's going to die. I never wanted that, I want him in prison but I didn't choose this and I wanted him to know that." She drew a deep breath, feeling tears burn behind her eyes.
"To not come, it felt like I would not be true to myself. But Derek, I can't not have you in my life. If nothing else, I've learned that these past two days.
"If I lose you, your friendship because of this, I don't know that I will ever get over it."
She paused. She'd said too much.
"So anyway, I really just wanted to hear your voice."
She could not say goodbye, in the circumstances, the word caught in her throat and so, she hit the end button and silence close around her.
Derek Morgan slid his phone back into his pocket. He drew in a breath.
He and the BAU team had a suspect in custody, he figured Hotch and Blake would have a confession before the day was out. By tonight, they'd be back at base, each one going home, case closed. That should be a satisfying thought.
It wasn't. Nothing in the world was right when Penelope was out there, alone and scared and he couldn't do a single thing about it. This fool mission she set herself on, he could never support that but he respected that she had to do it. Beneath the buttery curls and bright make up, the little stuffed animals and primary colours, Penelope Garcia was smart and strong and her integrity was rock solid.
So he had to let her go, let her do what she had to do and all he could hope for is that she would come back. He wanted her back so much, his Penelope, who looked at rain and saw the promise of flowers, saw winter and thought of Christmas, came upon hurt and found a way to fix it.
Standing by went against every instinct in him but he was trained to fight the call to rush, to wait when there was need of it. It was just so much harder this time.
Watching a man die, that was the fabric of Garcia's nightmares and if she had known her trip here would have led to that, she would never have come.
That is Fate, she supposed. To follow where it leads is to go where you can't see and just have to trust.
Being present at an execution was something Penelope would have turned herself inside out to avoid. It went against everything she believed. Today, she had had witnessed a man die and being there had been an act true to her humanity and utterly against it. How was that possible?
Too tired and heartsick to seek the answer to that or any more questions, Garcia caught her flight home, an automaton, functioning without any real thought.
When she walked up her drive and saw the tall form of Derek Morgan standing beneath a lamp before her door, she thought she was imagining it. Her bruised and tormented heart had conjured him.
When she felt his arms close around her, she began believing he was real. Even if he wasn't, this was the nicest thing her mind had summoned in days.
She leaned into his embrace and Derek knew she was on the very last fumes of her reserve. It took just about all she had to remain upright.
"Let's go, baby girl," he said, taking her key and pushing it into the door, keeping an arm around her, holding her close to him as he guided her inside her apartment building.
In her place, he locked the door behind them and flicked on the lamp.
In the warmth of the homely space she'd created here, she looked even more shell shocked.
He could have asked her what had happened but he already knew, he knew where the path she'd put herself on was leading before she left the BAU.
"I'm sorry. I am so sorry," she mumbled up at him and he frowned down at her.
He took her face in his hands. "Penelope, you're back. That is what matters to me. The only thing."
She was so grateful she didn't need to start telling him what it was like, relieved he didn't push.
"Right now, you need to eat something, sleep. We have things to deal with and we will, honey. Just not now," he said firmly.
He fixed her supper. Waited while she showered and changed. Kissed her lightly on the top of the head as she made ready to go to bed.
He settled on her couch, letting her know that she wasn't going to be alone.
In the morning, he was sitting at the counter as she came into the kitchen, finishing a slice of toast.
"Dark chocolate first thing. I can live with that!" she sounded just like herself.
She poured cereal into a bowl and sat beside him. She was wrapped in a fluffy robe, bright pink in colour, with images of impossibly cute kittens gambolling all over it. She looked just like herself.
She met his eyes and he saw the hurt. The façade was a fragile one.
"We got something to do, Miss Precious," he said. Time to end this weird and uncomfortable going through the motions thing they were doing.
""What?" If he was going to tell her that he was done being her friend, reached the end of the line, she didn't know if she could take it. So she told herself to steel her heart, get ready for words that would pierce her like bullets.
He stood up and came to stand in front of her, cupping her face in his hands.
"You scared the Hell out of me, Penelope. You sought something you shouldn't have. That can't happen again, sweet lady," his tone was quiet, soft even but there was Philadelphia steel behind each one.
"You're saying you don't forgive me?" the thought was unspeakably painful to her.
""I'm saying that I am going to show you what happens when you put me through something like that," he responded, stepping away from her and moving towards her living room.
""You're still angry," she said, saddened.
"No. No, Penelope. I'm not," he came back towards her, let her see the absence of rancour in his eyes.
He placed his hands on the top of her counter, leaned in towards her.
"I am going to give you something you earned by starting in on something you knew better than to get wrapped up in," he said.
"Rule number one in this job, Penelope. Never, never let it get personal. You don't keep that wall up, you start to lose yourself. I won't let that happen to you. That's why this is happening," he said slowly.
"What? What's happening?" she scrabbled to her feet, a dawning realisation making butterflies dance like crazy in her stomach.
"I'm going to put you over my knee," his answer caused her mind to whir.
"Like an actual spanking?" her voice had stopped sounding like her own, rising in pitch.
"Not like. It will be an actual spanking. I need you to come with me, angel," he replied.
Garcia blinked and he held a hand out to her and somehow, without any conscious decision, she found herself putting her hand in his and allowing him to draw her into the living room, where he sat on the edge of the over stuffed sofa.
"You aren't going to make me…?" still flummoxed by the unexpected turn of events, Penelope's mind began to catch up with what was happening.
Embarrassment flooded her at the thought. "Undress? Like ick," he saw the petition in her eyes.
He had no desire to humiliate. "No. You stay as you are. Penelope, you ever been punished physically before?" he asked, seeing the trepidation on her face.
"No. Uh uh. You know my parents died and I was pretty much on my own after that. Nobody was in my life enough to take note if I was on the path to righteousness or not. And you know I deviated off that plenty before the FBI," she said.
"Ok, this is how it is. I'm going to lean you across my knee. The only thing I will use is this." He held up his free hand, palm outward to her.
"You cry all you need to but don't you fight me. And when it's done, we're square, you and me," he gave her a level look and then tugged the hand he was holding so that she was face down over his lap.
Before she had time to process anything else, his hand landed the first time and the sharp sting had her sucking in a startled breath.
This was for real. Penelope squeezed her eyes shut, an old ploy to block tears but stifling the cries in her throat as the heat from the swats intensified, that was proving more difficult.
"You don't need to do the brave and resigned thing, baby girl. You need to cry, cry," he said, pausing to look down at her rigid form.
The spanking resumed and to Penelope, it felt as though a dam as breaking inside her.
The images from the past few days, the prison, the execution suite, Bayler's face flashed like scenes from a bad movie behind her eyelids.
So she cried, and cried, great heaving sobs and it was several minutes before she realised that he had stopped the spanking. Instead his hand was gentle on her back.
"That's it, let it out. That's my girl," his soft words of comfort finally penetrated the noise coming out of her.
He lifted her upright, taking care to hold her against him, keeping his arms around her.
She squirmed to find a comfortable position and pressed her face into his shoulder.
"That stung, really smarted," she sniffled.
"It was supposed to, sweetness. But it's over now," he smoothed her hair.
Truth of it was that it had hurt him almost as much to administer the spanking.
Penelope thought she would be mad at him, she thought she would be plotting revenge just as soon as he let her go but strangely, she didn't feel like that at all.
It seemed that somehow the horrible loop of the images from the prison had been switched off. She felt lighter, free of the weight of guilt and sadness.
She had gone to the prison seeking redemption of sorts but it was here and now that she felt absolved.
She had felt so powerless. Now a realisation was settling on her like a balm on her heart.
She mattered, she had value and she was needed. She had almost forgotten that simple thing. He had given a sense of it back to her.
He was right, she had let the thing with Bayer get past the professional armour they all needed to maintain.
She feared she had lost her rock, her Derek and that had hurt her most of all.
She hadn't. He was right here, waiting for her all along. He had never stopped caring and that gave Penelope a feeling of walking in sunlight after a long winter.
"Don't you scare me like that again, princess," he said quietly. "All my scary gone away. You know I love you, Derek Morgan?" she whispered back.
"I know it. And I thank God for it," he said. He dropped a feather light kiss on top of her head.
"Welcome home, Penelope."