A/N: All begging and pleading won't get you further. It's still a chapter a day. Sorry... :) Now... let the confusion, second-guessing and surprising begin.

Just as a reminder, this is a gift, written for BonesBird, for the valentine's Gift exchange over on the CCOAC forum. Her prompts were Valentine's card, expensive meal and soft lightning. Her song choice was The Coral - Dreaming about you - although the song itself actually isn't featured in the story. The prompts start with this chapter.


Come Monday Penelope walked around between being excited and close to a nervous breakdown. She was excited about the events ahead and the evening, but at the same time she was nervous as well. What did she know about the guy? Nothing. It could be anyone for as far as she was concerned. It could be Peter, the mailman, or Richard from Security. Marcus from the in-house coffee shop downstairs or one of the million agents from all the various departments. There were just too many options to consider and right now Penelope was already feeling a headache coming up, without thinking about every guy in this building.

She spoke briefly to Emily and JJ last night who both seemed more ecstatic then herself about their friend's sudden plans for Valentine's Day. Penelope herself couldn't even believe it and despite her excitement she also knew she needed to be careful. With her job she saw every day how blind dates could turn out and the last thing she needed was a repetition of what happened with Battle. So she came up with a plan.

She knew both her friends had plans for Valentine's, so the last thing she would do was make them come with her or stuff like that, but she decided she needed to have safety measure. So she agreed with Emily that Emily would give her a call within the first ten minutes of the date to see how things were and then another one after an hour or so. They also agreed that Penelope for sure would not get into any car. She would get a cab home and call her friends the moment she made it home, just to make sure. All that should be sufficient enough to make sure she wouldn't get into any trouble.

Making it into her office that morning she was already expecting another bunch of flowers, but was left with nothing. Her desk looked exactly like it did when she had left the office on Friday. She didn't even know why she felt disappointed. It wasn't as if it was a given that she would receive flowers every single day. She knew that the flowers would sooner or later stop coming, but she had hoped it wouldn't be that soon.

An hour after she arrived at work, she heard a knock on her door, finding Peter on the other side when she opened. He smiled at her as usual when he came by to bring her the mail.

"Beautiful day today, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes, it … um … yes," Penelope only replied. He smiled some more, before handing her a small pile of mail and then leaving to deliver everyone else's mail, whistling while he walked down the corridor of the BAU.

Penelope sorted through her mail, seeing the usual items she got on Monday's. Usually meeting notes and updates, memos and such. But there was one item that caught her eye. It was in a FedEx envelope, which was unusual, since the only time she actually got anything FedExed was when the team was out on a case and they needed to get something to her quickly for processing.

Ripping the envelope open all she found inside was an index card, with something printed on it.

"Thanks and I'm looking forward to tonight. The table is reserved under the name Cunningham."

Cunningham? Penelope looked at the card for a moment, before opening a browser on her computer screen and typing in that last name.

There were only three guys working for the FBI in Quantico with the last name Cunningham at the moment. And opening the files she saw that one of them was 54, while the second one had a domestic partner listed. With the name Dominic. That only left number three then. And number three was neither old, nor gay, but so not Penelope's type. He actually reminded her a lot about Kevin Lynch. Good God.

And scrolling down in his file she also saw a wife. This did somehow not get any better.

So at the moment it looked like tonight she would either go out with some old guy, who was after 'fresh meat', some guy who was sexually confused or bisexual or some married guy, who probably needed some extramarital entertainment. At this stage she didn't know what was worse. They all three kind of scored the same amount of points. Suddenly Penelope felt rather depressed. She needed to speak to Emily and JJ again. And soon. So leaving all her other mail unopened at her desk she took off to JJ's office, dragging Emily in there, while she passed her friend's desk, getting rather curious looks from Morgan, Reid and Rossi.

"I can't… I mean… one is married, the one gay and the last one just … creepy. He is like 20years my senior. I didn't think this would be the end to my Valentine's this year. I rather prefer being all on my own and … sitting on my couch with a carton of Ben&Jerry's…" Penelope whined.

"Maybe it will be a good evening. Or… maybe it isn't even one of these. Maybe it's the brother, the much younger, much straighter, much single and handsome brother of one of these guys," Emily argued and just by looking the stare Penelope gave her friend Emily knew that Penelope wasn't convinced. And neither was she.

"Maybe I should just… stay at home," Penelope figured.

"You can't do that," JJ exclaimed, making Penelope wonder.

"Why not?"

"It's Valentine's Day. You can't stand up the poor guy. Not today. Imagine how you would feel, being stood up in a restaurant that is probably packed with couples that enjoy romantic diners. Just … go and maybe you'll have a great time. You don't need to get… into anything. Just see how it goes," JJ explained and Penelope had to admit her friend had a point. Of all the days to stand someone up Valentine's was probably the worst.

After their conversation and the promise to have lunch together Penelope walked back to her office, deciding that JJ was right. She should just go and have some fun. Who cared if the guy didn't look like George Clooney? She could still have fun, right? Plus, she wasn't really Megan Fox either.

A good half hour before lunch Penelope had another knock on her ajar door, which slowly opened with each knock.

"Ms. Garcia?" she heard Martin, another one of the mail guys, asking hesitantly.

Turning around in her chair she saw him carrying a large bouquet of red roses.

"They were just delivered for you. I guess, with Valentine's and all…" he smiled sweetly at her, before stepping into the office and putting the vase with the flowers down.

"Thank you, Martin," she smiled at him, fishing for the card in the bouquet. Maybe Mr. Cunningham had decided on some more flowers then.

"Anytime. And you have a good day," he said, before leaving her office again and Penelope wished him the same before he was completely vanished.

The card was different than the ones before. It was bright pink and red, with 'Happy Valentine's' written on its front in bold, big letters. A Valentine's card just as you could probably buy in any shop.

"Let me be your Valentine" was written inside in handwriting. This time it was not printed, but real handwriting. And it had a signature.

Derek Morgan

And just like that Penelope's day took a whole new turn.


Post-A/N: Now... ou didn't think I would give you all in one chapter, did you?