AN: Just a quick note to say that this chapter makes references to events that happened in the second season episode Aftermath which is the episode where Elle botched an undercover assignment and then shot the suspect but nobody could prove that it wasn't self-defense and she did it because she was likely suffering from PTSD. I promise not every chapter will bring the angst. :)
She's a
Saturn with a sunroof
With her brown hair a-blowing
She's a
soft place to land
And a good feeling knowing
Morgan flipped through the photo album he had pulled off of one of Garcia's shelves in her living room. She had already ordered dinner and been about to jump in the shower when he arrived. It was late and he should have probably let her go to sleep, but he needed her comfort more than ever tonight. He shook his head and refocused on the pictures in plastic sleeves before him. Thinking about Elle and how he should have seen it coming would get him nowhere.
"Food isn't here yet?" Garcia asked as she came out of her bedroom towel drying her hair.
"Not yet. Freddy must be driving tonight." When they wanted food at some ungodly hour they almost always called the same place so they had come to know the various delivery people and their habits.
"I swear, if our food is cold this time I will take your gun and threaten him with it," she said from the kitchen where she grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge.
"Why do you think I'm still wearing it?" Morgan teased her as she came to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. He chuckled as she stuck her tongue out at him. It was then she noticed what he had been looking at.
"Oh, God, don't tell me you're looking at what I think you're looking at," she moaned as she covered her eyes with her hand.
He smiled. "Hey, after you found my box of pictures I thought it was only fair I got to see some of yours. At least I didn't hunt through your closet for this."
"I was looking for the hand held vacuum cleaner you insisted was in there, mister. Since it wasn't in there like you claimed I figured I at least got to look at the box of pictures you had stuffed back there. I still don't know why you won't let me put them in a photo album for you so they don't get ruined. It's not like I'm going to do some cutesy scrapbooking with them, I just want to put them in some plastic. You don't even have a lid on the box."
He refrained from telling her that he wouldn't mind if a couple of those pictures were ruined. He couldn't bring himself to destroy them, but that didn't mean he wanted them preserved. To divert himself from that train of thought he flipped back a couple of pages in the album that sat on his lap and pulled out a picture to hold up to her. "So, darling, sweetie, honey, gorgeous. When exactly were you a brunette?"
Garcia draped her towel over a chair and put her water bottle on the coffee table before coming forward to take the picture from him and sit on the opposite side of the couch. "I forgot that one was even in there!" She smiled at him and handed back the photo. "That was during college. My roommate told me that nobody would believe I was smart if I was blonde and perception still mattered to my teenage brain. So, I went brunette. And the crap took forever to completely leave once I finally came to my senses and decided I was genius enough that I shouldn't give a damn what conclusions people came to because of something as stupid as the color of my hair." She tucked a foot under herself and turned so her whole body faced him and put an arm against the back of the couch so she could prop her chin on her hand. "That and the fact that I already had to deal with enough preconceptions due to the fact that I was a computer geek that I decided what was one more?"
Derek leaned forward. "Anyone who doesn't recognize your genius and wit within about 10 seconds of meeting you is obviously not right in the head," he said before he put a soft kiss on her lips and then leaned back against his corner of the couch.
"A whole ten seconds?" Garcia questioned with an upraised eyebrow and a twinkle in her eye.
"Well, that takes into account the first nine and a half seconds where they would be stunned by your beauty." Morgan laid his arm across the back of the couch with the palm of his hand up and she readily put her hand in his.
"You're good, Agent Morgan. The Bureau teach you that?" she teased as she squeezed his hand.
"Right after the fire arms training," he quipped. He held the picture up again with his other hand. "Back to the picture, I'm actually more surprised by the car than the hair. What's with the Saturn?"
Garcia smiled. "That's not my car. I was way too poor in college to have one. It was my roommate's."
"The same one who said you should go brunette?" he asked.
"One and the same. That advice may be a mark against her, but she does deserve credit for showing me the wonders of having the wind blow throw my hair. I used to love standing on the seat of her car and sticking out of the sun roof just like in that picture."
Morgan looked down at the color photo again. It must have been taken from someone in a car in front of Garcia and who he guessed to be the roommate driving. "I'm going to take a wild guess that that isn't exactly legal."
The blonde still holding his hand rolled her eyes. "Ever the law enforcement officer. The illegality of the act was part of the thrill." Morgan chuckled and looked back down at the album while absently rubbing Garcia's hand with his thumb. Several moments later she broke the silence. "Derek?"
"Yeah?" he asked as he looked back up. He inwardly winced as he noted the way she was now looking at him. Apparently he wasn't doing too good of a job keeping his state of mind from showing. That or she knew him well enough to guess where his head was at regardless of what he tried to project.
"You know that it wasn't your fault, right? That she made her own choices and now she has to live with them." He knew that she didn't mean that as a criticism against Elle. While nobody on the team condoned what she had done, they all sympathized with her and what she had gone through and what the case had probably brought up for her. Garcia was just addressing how the situation pertained to him.
"Can we not talk about it tonight, Penelope?" If he was going to talk about it with anyone it would be her since Hotch and Gideon had problems of their own to handle regarding Elle and probably wouldn't or couldn't handle Derek's issues on top of that. And also since she was the only one outside of his mother and sisters he easily opened up to anyway, but he didn't want to handle it that night. A few more days and he would have dealt with the worst of it and then he could talk it out if necessary.
"I'm not asking for a long conversation, I just want to know for now that you at least understand up here," she said as she leaned forward and tapped his head with a finger from her free hand, "that you are not responsible. Everything down here," she continued, poking his chest over his heart this time, "can wait till a little later."
He gave her a small smile. He should have known she wouldn't try to push him too hard. It was why he always gravitated to her after stuff like this. She was safe and made him feel good in a way that no one else ever had. Sometimes he felt like knowing her was the only thing that kept him sane. But she would softly nudge to help him get his head on straight and he was grateful for that as well. "Yeah, I do know intellectually that hindsight is 20/20 and all." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I'm okay for tonight. I've got all I need in you."
He watched her blink rapidly to hold back tears. "You must have aced that course at Quantico, stud muffin." He smiled and opened his mouth to reply when the doorbell rang. "The food!" Garcia grabbed his arm and turned it so she could read his watch. "It's about time! He better have a good explanation or he'll be wearing our order…"
Morgan just smiled as she opened the door and mildly berated the delivery man on the other side who had started apologizing profusely immediately. It would probably take a little longer this time and there would be ripples from Elle's actions for a long while to come, but he wasn't just being romantic when he told Garcia she was everything he needed. Even food seemed inconsequential compared to how much he needed her. And the scary thing wasn't that he needed her. No, the scary thing was that needing her like that didn't scare him at all.
