Okay, so reviews plus the fact that I finished a neat little interlude chapter tonight means you guys can have this. I should have all of the review replies done by tomorrow morning, and there's a handful I want to reply to in person.

Keep reviewing, I keep writing, posts come faster... you know the drill.

Chapter 10

The Glory that Was...

Gabi Morgan

December (Pre-Christmas)

--

Penelope Garcia-Morgan rushed through the hospital halls without an regard to whomever she may bowl over. She was on a mission and trying not to panic at the same time. It was to be expected. Gabi had called, in tears, requesting her mother come to the hospital. The hospital! Penelope had wanted to grill her daughter right then and there on the phone, without any regard to whatever was actually going on. But maternal instincts had, naturally, kicked in first and Penelope found herself packing her bags before she even thought about calling Derek.

The team was in Oklahoma. There was nothing he could do. That had been her justification for why she still hadn't picked up the phone. There was no use freaking him out because his princess was in the hospital without more information. Which was why she was racing through the halls of a hospital, trying to find her daughter. Eventually, the room number caught her eye and she swung into the sterile room.

Her daughter, her strong, intelligent, beautiful daughter, was curled in a ball on a hospital bed, her back to the door. Penelope dropped her bags, sliding onto the edge of the bed, her hand stroking over Gabi's dark hair.

"Mama?"

Gabi's voice was so small, it brought tears to Penelope's eyes. "You've got that right."

Gabi shot upright and into her mother's arms, tears soaking the skin of Penelope's neck. Her own tears sprung to her eyes. Gabi was twenty-one, an adult by every stretch of the imagination. Yet here she was, crying in her mother's arms like she'd done when she was still just a little girl. Penelope's heart broke. They sat like that until Gabi calmed down, though Penelope didn't let go as the sobbing and shaking died down.

"Peanut, what happened?"

Gabi tensed in her arms. "You're going to be disappointed."

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm not," Penelope tried to reassure her eldest, even as her heart jumped into her throat. "I could never be disappointed in you."

Gabi pulled away then, curling herself into that ball again, wrapping her arms around her shins. "There's no easy way to tell you..."

Penelope gave her a mock scolding face. "Come on. Out with it."

"I was pregnant."

Penelope slammed head long into a wall she hadn't even known existed. Pregnant? Her baby girl? At twenty-one? Well, Penelope had to admit she agreed with Gabi's previous assessment. There really wasn't a delicate way of saying life-changing news like that. She remembered finding out she was pregnant with the young woman in front of her, the shock, the depression... she and Derek hadn't even been together at that point.

"Does Jack know?" Penelope asked quietly, forcing herself to put shock aside for the time being.

Gabi shook her head. "I was pregnant, Mama."

Shock was brutally shoved aside for sympathy. Was. Meaning she wasn't anymore. Meaning she'd had a miscarriage. "Oh, Peanut."

The tears came again, though this time, Gabi simply sobbed into her arms. Penelope shifted as best she could on the narrow bed, wrapping an arm around her daughter's shoulders. A clearing of the throat brought their attention to the doctor that had stepped into the room. He tried for a smile in Penelope's direction.

"You must be Mom," he greeted.

Penelope nodded. "Penelope Morgan."

"Dr. Bob Stewart," the doctor replied, shaking Penelope's hand. His attention turned to Gabi. "So I have good news and bad news."

Gabi chewed her lip as Penelope bit her tongue. Her daughter had just lost a baby, how could there be good news?

Dr Stewart pulled up a chair, sitting in it and resting his arms on his thighs. "Do you know what a chemical pregnancy is?"

Both women shook their heads.

"It's a very, very early miscarriage," the doctor explained. "They're pretty common, so you're not much different than about fifty to sixty percent of women on their first pregnancy."

"But it's been months. I didn't get my period," Gabi said quietly.

The doctor nodded. "I can't account for what you were thinking, but I'd bet it was a combination of actually being pregnant, miscarrying early, then, because you'd taken the test and convinced yourself you were pregnant, your body started showing the signs. You had morning sickness?"

Gabi blushed, but nodded.

Penelope couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Hold on a gosh darn minute here," she said, "You're telling me that she's not pregnant?"

"Miss Morgan? Have you told your mother what happened?"

Gabi shook her head. "I didn't get a chance."

Dr Stewart smiled sympathetically. It really was a lot for a young woman to go through, especially since he'd bet the woman in question hadn't expected to be pregnant in the slightest.

Gabi took a deep breath. "I fell," she said. "I was in the computer lab..."

* * *

"Hey Gabs, server four's down again."

Gabi sighed, looking up at her long-time friend and colleague Clint Gowen. They'd been friends since both starting MIT four years ago. "So fix it."

He chuckled. "You know I'm not allowed. You're the only one here with the clearance codes."

Gabi frowned.

"Everything okay?" Clint asked. He'd noticed Gabi was off, noticed that she wasn't her usually bubbly self.

"You've been asking me that for weeks," Gabi snapped. "I'm fine."

Clint held up his hands. "Got it."

Gabi pushed herself up with a heavy sigh. "Why couldn't, I don't know, Dan be here?"

"Wish I could tell you," Clint replied. Then he cocked his head to the side. "Know what? Don't worry about it. Give me the pass code, I'll go fix it, no one will be the wiser. It'll be a quick thing anyway."

She wrinkled her nose. Yeah right no one would know. Plus, she wasn't allowed to pass out that kind of confidential information. She'd worked damn hard for the security clearance she had now. "Nah. I'm up now. It's fine."

She made her way to the stairs. The servers were held in a temperature controlled room just under the lab she was working in. Hitting the bottom, she blew out a breath. She was exhausted. It didn't help that she'd been up at ungodly hours emptying her stomach. Morning sickness sucked.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she missed the mess of cables on the floor. Her foot caught in a loop of wires and before she knew it, she'd fallen face first... Her stomach landing on a tool box that had been left behind. The air whooshed out of her lungs as her heart stopped. She'd just hit her stomach. Hard.

She rolled, curling in on herself and trying to breathe again. Eventually, she pushed herself upright, forcing herself amidst the pain to go back up the stairs. Clint saw her almost immediately.

"That took you-" he started, before taking a good look at her. "What's wrong?"

She swallowed thickly. "I think I need to go to the hospital."

* * *

Penelope wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter. Dr Stewart smiled sympathetically again.

"The good news," he said softly, "which I recognize is a relative term, is that you had already miscarried by that point. All you're going to have to worry about is a bone-deep bruise that's going to make moving a little hard for the next couple of weeks."

He didn't have to tell them the bad news.

He reached over, resting his hand on Gabi's forearm. "Miss Morgan, the one thing you need to remember is that this was, by no means, your fault. It happens. Women miscarry all the time."

They all knew it didn't make Gabi feel that much better, but Penelope and the doctor both recognized that it was something that had to be said. There was no fault in miscarriages. They happened for a number of different, often inexplicable reasons. The doctor left then, leaving mother and daughter cuddled together as best the narrow bed could fit them.

Gabi sniffled slightly, then spoke. "Mama, I want to go home."

"Of course, baby," Penelope agreed. "Of course."

And to think, Derek and Jack don't even know! But they will...

Kate's up next. Well, the chapter's about Kate, but really it centers around Hotch. Yay for Daddy!Hotch.