A/N: SInce I got a few questions for the ballot for voting ... I think they aren't out et. I will let you know when they are online...
"I don't understand," Kevin Lynch repeated for the fifth time tonight. Penelope had called him and asked whether he could come by her place. They needed to talk. She knew she should have maybe phrased it differently, but Kevin didn't seem too worried to begin with.
"What's not to understand?" Penelope asked softly, wondering what about the words 'I need a break' weren't clear.
"Well, for starters … why?" Kevin asked, sounding annoyed by now.
"I … this relationship – we – are not going anywhere right now. We are together since three years, and quite honestly I thought that by now we would be married," Penelope confessed, before being interrupted by Kevin.
"You want to get married? Okay. Pick a date. Let's get married," Kevin responded, making Penelope sigh once more.
"Kevin, I don't … I don't mean I need to get married now. And I thought if you would propose it would sound less like a spontaneous idea or like that and some romance would be involved. I don't want to get married to you just because you feel like you have to get married now. Just because I mentioned it."
"So, if you don't want to get married then, why do you need a break?" Kevin asked irritated.
"Because this relationship at the moment is just not going left or right, forward or back. It just … seems to be on hold," Penelope explained, wondering whether he might understand her now.
There was a break for a moment, with Kevin looking at Penelope intensely.
"It's Derek Morgan, isn't it?" he finally asked and Penelope wondered whether he was serious.
"What? No. What makes you think that?" she asked, not needing an answer actually. Every time – no matter whether there was any sense to it or not – Kevin brought up Derek Morgan as 'scapegoat' for everything.
"Sometimes I wonder who's more important to you Penelope. Derek or me?" Kevin asked and Penelope hoped he meant that as a rhetorical question. He didn't. And her rather dodging the question than answering should have told her a lot as well. But then again she herself had been aware of the crush she had on Derek Morgan ever since the day that they had laid eyes on each other. She never saw it moving anywhere though. They talked, flirted, like hell and it was a nice change to her otherwise rather dark job. But it wasn't more than that. It was exactly just that. Talk.
"You know what, Penny? Why don't you sleep with Derek Morgan?" Kevin exclaimed loudly, before getting his coat and making it through the door and quite possibly out of her life. That wasn't how she had expected this to go. But she shouldn't be surprised either. Morgan has always been an issue in the relationship of Kevin and her. Kevin seemed constantly jealous of Morgan and didn't seem to understand that he was her friend, and she wouldn't just stop talking to him, or going out with him because Kevin saw Morgan waiting on his chance behind every question. She agreed on reducing the nights out and together, but even that didn't seem to soften Kevin Lynch's disposition much.