Disclaimer: I own nothing.
This oneshot is for Wen T, who requested a story with the song "Say Something" by A Great Big World. Warning in advance: due to this being a MAJORLY sad song, this story will have a HUGE angst meter. Please review and enjoy!
1 April 2014: Due to a message I received from the group "Eliminator" I have been told the song lyrics have to be removed. But do know that the first verse of this song is what inspired this story.
"Baby, do you wanna go get dinner tomorrow night?" Penelope asked her husband, putting the last folded pair of jeans away. She turned around to face Derek and leaned against the oak dresser. Crossing her arms over her chest, she added, "Jesse can keep an eye on Rory, and we can —"
Derek coughed, averted his eyes, and shook his head. "Can't," he interrupted. "Too much paperwork. Maybe another time."
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes as she looked at him. He rose from his seat at the end of the bed where he had removed his shoes. She watched as he was unbuttoning his shirt to throw it over the side of the chair in the corner of their bedroom. He padded shirtless across the room to the dresser. Opening the drawer right next to her, he pulled out a pair of loose pajama pants and stripped from the work ones to change. As he went to sit on the bed and open a file folder from his briefcase, she watched him with a hurt expression.
She couldn't even look at him without feeling like her heart was being ripped out her ribcage and thrown on the ground to get stomped on. His features were worn down and tired now, a perpetual glow of sadness always (at least) dimly present in his eyes. Their sex life was still consistent, but he wasn't emotionally there, no matter how hard she tried to bring him back. He was even gone when it came to their children. Thirteen year old Jesse's first football game of the season passed by without him remembering it, and their nine year old daughter, Rory was forced to call Rossi after Derek forgot to pick her up from school because he was "caught up in paperwork."
This was how life with Derek had been for the time since Fran died. Even after two years, his mother's death still haunted him.
As he was thumbing through the files, he didn't even realize that she was watching him. Penelope hadn't even gotten undressed and was still watching him. For five solid minutes, she watched as he scratched away with a pen and turned pages. All five of those minutes, he didn't notice anything. He didn't bother to notice that she was watching him. Tears began to pool in her eyes and leak down her face. Where was he now? She missed Fran, too; the woman had been like another mother to her. But Derek's complete shutdown after her death — not speaking to Penelope for days at a time, forgetting their children's appointments or days important to them — was unacceptable. If it were just her, she wouldn't have as much of a problem, but their son and daughter crossed a line, one she wasn't willing to let him cross.
"Derek," she said. Her voice was hoarse, like sandpaper.
"Mmm?" he hummed, not looking up from his work. She was silent for a moment, and it prompted him to raise his gaze to hers. "What, Penelope?"
She took a deep breath. Anger and grief over what he'd become may have been something she thought about often, but never did she think of how to actually tell him how she felt about his change. In her mind she always pictured herself yelling and adding volume to voice her hurt, but the words never quite formed. She had the rage, but not the words to express it.
Wiping her tears, she went towards their bed and crawled onto her side. She sat on her knees and faced him, hoping he would at least look at her. But it was to no avail. His eyes were retrained on his work. How could he not see her pain or hear her sniffling? In a rush of anger, she snatched his file off his lap and tossed it unceremoniously to the foot of their bed. Even then he didn't react. He merely sighed and looked at her with a blank expression. His eyes were dead as he looked into hers, unresponsive to her taking his work.
It was that moment exactly that she knew she needed to say something, even if her husband stared at her without any idea of what was going on.
Surprisingly, the anger didn't come in the way she always imagined it would. Instead, her own grief was taking over, inserting itself unwelcome into her body language. "Derek," she murmured, leaning forward to take his hands. She tried giving them a comforting squeeze, but he ignored it, his hands remaining limp. "Derek, please." Pausing, she cursed herself for not being able to keep the raw desperation from her voice. "I need you to…say something."
He shrugged in slight confusion. "What? What do you want me to say?" he said numbly.
"Anything," she blurted. Clutching his hands tighter, she looked at him with the tears shining in her eyes. Somehow, though, even as he stared at her, she wasn't quite sure he was seeing her. Another painful reminder as to how out of touch he was with even her.
"Okay," he muttered. "Uh…why did you throw my file across the bed?"
Her heart broke in two, and her lips began to tremble uncontrollably. Not Okay, I'll tell you why I'm shutting you and the kids out or Why are you crying?, but something about work. "Derek," she whispered brokenly. "You need to…You can't just…" Each time she tried to speak, words failed her. Maybe this was too much for her. She took a deep breath, and tried to find words.
Derek beat her to them. "Penelope, if there's nothing to talk about, I really have work to finish," he said tiredly. "I need to get these reports done, and —"
"No!" she cried in frustration, dropping his hands. "You have to — no, you need to — listen to me! Because dammit if you're not going to say something then I will! I have reached about the end of my rope here!" She rose from their bed so she could stare down at him. This was going to happen now.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she started speaking tearfully. "These past two years since your mother died have been hard," she began. "They've been hard for all of us, and I know how you feel." Seeing his doubtful expression, she shook her head and held up her finger to stop him from even thinking what was going through his mind. "Don't you even think about telling me I don't know! I know exactly how this feels. I lost my parents, too, remember? And since you decided to not talk, I will!"
She took a deep breath before going on. "You were so, so close to Fran, so I understand your grief. It's terrible. But it affected you in a way that you completely shut off from reality. You go days without talking to me, you rarely get your ass out of work for two seconds, and worst of all, you shut down in front of our children. They don't even know what to think about you right now! Rory even asked me what she did to make you hate her."
Her last statement seemed to wake him out of his trance, at least momentarily. "She knows I love her," he insisted quietly.
"No, she doesn't," Penelope stated, not caring that her words sounded harsh coming off her tongue; Derek needed to hear this. "You forgot her at school, you don't talk to her when she tries to talk to you, and you haven't spent any time with her at all. That's on you, Derek. And you don't even want me to get into how many of Jesse's football games you've missed. I know you're still sad about your mom, and I know you miss her, but don't make our children strangers because you can't handle it."
Derek stared at her with the same blank expression. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was motionless.
Wiping her eyes, she went to sit on the edge of their bed, this time at his side. She took his face in her hands and used her thumb to stroke his cheekbone. "Derek…Baby…please!" she murmured, sniffling. "Stop hiding from me. You would tell me anything before. Now you just…" She shook her head, the memories too painful to think about. "Baby, I love you. Let me help you. I would do anything for you. But you have to tell me what's going on and be…you again!"
Derek averted his eyes once more, not reacting to her touch or her words. She couldn't even tell him if they worked in breaking him out of his funk. Based on his non-reaction though, it was fairly obvious nothing would. Looking down at her lap, Penelope removed her hands from his face and bit down a cry. If he couldn't see what this was doing to her their her or their children in that moment, he never would. Here she was, crying in front of him and begging for him to return to the way he was, and he wasn't saying a word.
"Fine," she said, her voice going cold.
Rising to her feet, she started for her closet. Derek didn't bother picking up his file again; he merely stared at his lap wordlessly. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, entering her walk-in closet and leaning up to the top shelf to grab a duffel bag.
This was it. She was done.
Grabbing a jacket from a rack, she shoved them in the bag before proceeding to her dresser in the room to start packing jeans and shirts into. With tears clouding her vision, she choked on a sob as she packed. Each moment she had to force herself to keep her eyes away from Derek. If she looked at her husband, she wouldn't find the strength to get her children and leave. Her resolve would ultimately fail, she would cave, and she would stay. But if Derek wasn't going to speak to her or pay attention to their children, she was getting them out of the house. They deserved better.
As she was fiddling with her clothing, Derek not only spoke, but he rose to his feet, getting off the bed to come to her side.
"What - what are you doing?" His voice was tight as he spoke.
Penelope kept her eyes on her clothes, yet found it in her to laugh bitterly. "You're a smart FBI profiler," she muttered. "Figure it out." She went on packing, wiping her face in hopes he wouldn't see it.
"Are you planning on taking Jesse and Rory?" he asked, his voice coming faster and somewhat panicked. There was the reaction she had spent the better part of two years searching for.
She nodded. "Yes. They deserve better than this. They deserve parents who can be there for them or listen to what they have to say. And right now that person is not you." She started for the bathroom to grab her toiletries.
This time, instead of being unresponsive, Derek followed after her. As she was digging through her drawers, he spoke again. "Penelope, can we talk about this first?" he asked, his voice attempting to stay calm.
"I wanted to talk five minutes ago," she snapped. "I'm done trying to talk. You won't talk to me about anything for two god damn years, and when I end up doing the thing I should have done a year ago, you wake up and figure out that I've had it."
He shook his head, barely harnessed fear coming out of his mouth. "So you're just…giving up?" he murmured gravely.
Though she wanted to avoid looking at him, thinking she wouldn't be able to keep going, right now she needed an exception. She wanted him to see the passionate fury in her eyes at that question. "Me giving up?" she demanded ruthlessly, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. "No, no! You gave up on us! I tried for two years to bring you back to us, and you ignored me and our children the whole time!" She shook her head. "I won't keep you away from them, but you have a hell of a long way to go before things will be the way they were before." Tears spilling from her eyes, she coughed in an attempt to hide it. "We'll get a hotel, and —"
"I go through every day trying to figure out how I'm supposed to live the way my mother wanted me to," he blurted out in the middle of her sentence. "I try and figure out if I could have been a better son to her because there are so many things in my life that I fucked up, and I know for a fact something might have been unforgivable in my past. I don't have anyone to call anymore when we're proud of our kids, and I don't have anyone to ask for advice on what to get you for an anniversary gift. Jesse and Rory don't have their grandmother to tell them embarrassing stories of how you and I met, you don't have the woman you looked up to as a surrogate mother, and I don't have anyone to remind me about my father."
He paused for breath. "I don't know how to make it through the day without seeing her face. I know it was two years ago, but it feels like it was just yesterday. I guess I just thought that she would never die…that she was immune to death somehow." His breathing had increased to near pant-speed and his eyes had the most wounded look Penelope had ever seen. The tears that had been trickling previously were now pouring down her face. He kept going, not giving her a moment to say anything. "I know I'm not talking about what's going on. I never meant to drive you away, or make the kids feel like I didn't care."
"You need to tell them you care," she sniffled. "You have to be their father again. They can't go through life with you being a ghost. And right now that's all you are to them: the ghost of their father. Be here for them!" Her voice lowered. "Be here for me. I need you. And you need me, too. Don't try and tell me you don't. You try to, but you can't do this without me. When we got married, we promised each other — we promised — we would be there for each other. And you shut me out which made it so I couldn't be there for you. And you sure as hell weren't there for me."
He grasped her by the arms. The pain he'd been bottling up for years was coming forward and written plainly on his face, and her heart broke all over again. His onyx eyes were holding nothing back. Derek was in agony and had been for a long time. She touched his cheek softly, almost able to feel the pain he was going through. "Derek…"
Seconds later, he pulled her forward roughly and crashed his lips down on hers. The kiss was fiery, desperate, full of Derek's personal torment. Her arms wrapped gently around his waist, and she held him with all the tenderness in her heart. Because Derek's pain was her pain, at least now that he was opening up to her. This amount of emotion wasn't something he held in his repertoire.
Now it was.
She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his. Wiping tears from her face, she kissed his cheek. "Say something, Derek," she murmured.
Choking on a sob, he slid to his knees in front of her and wept into her belly. "I'm sorry," he wept. "I'm so, so sorry."
Bending forward, she kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek against him. "I've got you," she whispered. "And I won't go anywhere, as long as you come back to us."