Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds!

A/N: Fly by update here! Thanks as always, you all rock!

All mistakes are mine, I had no time to check properly =/ However, ENJOY!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From Heaven, With Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Penelope seemingly gasped as she opened her eyes. One moment the bright light had faded and she wondered if she had done wrong and this was death as she felt light and free. Then everything cascaded together and she was flooded with newfound pains and an inability to breathe properly.

She looked around with wide eyes as commotion seemed to fill the room around her, trying her hardest to make sense of what was going on. It didn't matter what she tried, her nerves were shot, her pain levels exceeding anything like before and her fear had escaped and was prominently cloaking her.

"Baby, it's Derek, Baby, it's me," Derek called out to her as he tried his best to make her see him whilst not getting in the way of the doctors. "Be brave, everything's going to be okay." Even Derek couldn't completely feel joyous at that moment; he was panicking too much at the state in which Penelope had woken up.

A state that she was never supposed to wake up too. They were all told she was gone, that there was no hope and here she was struggling as the doctors and nurses rushed to get her breathing on her own moments after she had bolted back to life – scaring Derek in the process.

Derek was given a couple of moments to be with Penelope while the doctor ordered the remaining nurses around and saw to Penelope. Looking down, Derek couldn't believe that Penelope was breathing on her own; that she was staring at him with the utmost amount of emotions and that she slowly broke into a smile at seeing him there.

"You're still here," She croaked almost inaudibly. Her throat was aching from the need of the breathing tube that had only just been removed and she felt the dryness at not having drunk anything for a while.

"Course I'm here," Derek replied, not taking into account the way she had worded that sentence. "I've had nowhere else I'd rather be, Baby Girl. I was needed here." He watched her try and cough a little and looked up to the doctor, "Can she have a drink? Her throat's really dry," He asked quickly and got a nod of the doctor.

"Small sips though," The doctor continued to advised. "It's good to see you awake Penelope. We're going to get you as comfortable as we possibly can and get you some more rest," He said and watched as Derek helped her take some of her drinks. "Your injuries were extensive but with the right rest and therapy I see no problem in you being back to normal in a couple of months." He then stood back up and went back to finishing up his notes he was writing.

"You really did some damage," Derek teased her as he sat with her, "Too much damage."

"How much?" Penelope asked as she breathed in deeply trying to work out what injuries she was sporting. She looked back at Derek, waiting on the response, but could feel herself falling back to sleep. The drugs dulling every pain in her.

"Just a few broken bones and internal damage," Derek left a lot of the details out as he noticed her exhausted glance taking over. "You just sleep though, Princess. We'll talk more when you're a little more awake. Just remember I'm going to be with you all the way through this." He leaned in and gave her kiss on the lips, keeping it gentle, "This is our recovery."

He waited until she was dosing a little before he got up to talk to the doctor. He wanted to know what the prognosis was now for Penelope.

"I don't know how this happened," The doctor started to tell Derek as they stood just at the doorway. "I honestly believed that she wasn't going to survive this and even though I don't want to say we are truly out of the woods and well on the road to recovery, I want to see how her progress is over the next couple of days. For now she needs the least amount of stress possible, minimal visitors and as much as rest as possible." The doctor warned the man he had seen never leave the room for the last couple of days. "Her heart rates strong, her breathings still laboured but that's expected, but her vitals are all stable and she is very alert."

"She's going to be okay," Derek told the doctor confidently. He couldn't believe that Penelope would still die, that she could just slip away from this life.

"To be honest with you, I haven't seen a case like this in all my years practise, but I can't help but agree with you," The doctor agreed firmly and offered him a smile. "This is nothing short of a miracle and I want to keep it that way. If there are any problems, even if minor, I want a nurse alerted and if necessary I want to be paged."

Derek nodded and was left and he approached the bed and took Penelope's hand, her eyes opening a little. He hadn't expected her still to be awake, not with the amount of drugs in her system, but he wasn't wasting any more moments. He was done waiting and wasting them.

"Those shoes are waiting at mine for you to work your magic on," Derek teased, he had never been happier to see Penelope looking at him. Even though she hadn't said much, the smile she gave him made up a million words, "And I know you said things were changing big time, I didn't realise this was part of your plan."

Penelope closed her eyes at the pain and tiredness claiming her and then tried to look at him. "Nor did I, Handsome," She croaked at him and grimaced. "I-I love you," Penelope told him quietly and held his gaze, refusing to lose it for anything. "I used the shoes as an excuse because I bottled it."

"Oh Baby," Derek said and cupped her face, "Well I'm going to use the shoes to seal the deal," He teased her and watched the small smile grace her lips. "Never doubt my love for you, ever."

"If you don't doubt mine," Penelope whispered back as the urge to sleep finally took a hold of her body.

"Never," Derek said and kissed her gently. "Believe me, I never will."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From Heaven, With Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Waking up properly Penelope realised quickly that she had lied. She said she could taken anything in this life, take the recovery, take the consequences of the hit and run, but laying there she knew she couldn't. The tears coursed down her cheeks as the pains ripped through her body, and her body was a constant throb. It was as if the medication she had pumped into her body just were not hitting the right spots.

Walking in, Derek took her hand in his and waited for her to look at him. He was in for the long hall after all. "What's a matter, Baby Girl?" He asked her. He was still in disbelief that she was awake, especially after being told that she would probably never wake up.

"I –I," she said as the sobs came, "The pain." She finished and took a break as if talking was just too much for her at that moment, "It's too much." In all honesty, Penelope didn't think she would be able to cope with this amount of pain for much longer.

"You aren't doing any of this alone, Baby," he vowed. "This recovery is my recovery too, remember? For the mean time, you pain is mine. We're in this together, you get it?" He didn't lie about any of it, seeing her in so much pain was quite literally killing him.

Nodding a little, "Yeah," Penelope told him and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.

"I'm going to go and talk to a nurse, see if there's anything else that can be done," He soothed her gently, showing her just how in to helping her he was. "This isn't normal to be in this amount of pain." He ran a hand around her face and captured her eye contact, "You be okay while I just pop out there?" Penelope nodded silently.

Closing her eyes to combat the tears, Penelope's thoughts were cast back to when she was with her mom and dad. Then she thought to when she had a chance to have five past memories and change them and she did and that final memory, her married to Derek Morgan and pregnant and she felt her mind deviate from the pain for a moment.

"Penelope," The nurse broke her thoughts, "I'm going to administer a higher dose of morphine to help with the pain. I'm also going to give you a sedative to help you sleep. I'll alert the doctor and see what he says. We need to get you as comfortable as possible," she told Penelope as Derek took to her side just as she administered the drugs. She looked up at Derek for a moment, "She'll be asleep pretty quickly if you wanna head home for a couple of hours."

"No it's fine, I'd rather stick around here," He told her truthfully and gave her a grateful smile. He watched her leave and looked at Penelope, "Feeling any better?" He asked her as he reached in and wiped her tears away.

Penelope nodded sleepily at him before trying to keep herself awake for a moment longer. "You're the reason I'm not dead," she told him, partially mumbled from the sleep invading her system. "I tried to accept it," she murmured quieter and quieter, her voice becoming a mere whisper. "I just couldn't-" Her eyes drooped shut then, "le-leave you."

She was asleep.

Derek pushed one of the lose curls back out of her face and smiled wistfully. He'd only gone to take a call from his mom; to tell her the news and in that time Penelope had woken up to whole new world of pain.

Feeling the tears falling, Derek fell into the seat by the bed and put his hands to his lips, thanking whoever it was that sent Penelope back to him.

He had dreamt so much that last couple of days about how she would wake up, but this wasn't in any of them. He might have dreamt a lot, but he was sure to tell her how he had relived moments in their life and gotten what he had wanted at the end of each of them.

He and Penelope were destined for a happily ever after no doubt about it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From Heaven, With Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-