Disclaimer: As stated several times before, I don't own Criminal Minds.

Chapter 10

Morgan, Prentice and Rossi had been assigned to search the basement of the bar as the others took the main floor. Morgan's blood turned to ice in his veins as he approached the door in the dark basement and heard Penelope's screams coming from the other side. With a glance and a nod to Rossi, he kicked in the door as Prentice notified Hotch letting him know where they were.

Morgan stood looking in horror as the door swung open and directly in front of him was Penelope trying to get away as Kowalski stabbed her from behind. Penelope fell to the ground with a sickening thud and Morgan fired without a second thought as he saw Kowalski raise his knife a second time. It was a perfect shot to the head and Kowalski was dead before he hit the ground but Derek never even took notice, all he could see was Penelope's limp and bleeding body on the ground before him.

"Get the medics down here!" he shouted as he knelt in front of her on the ground. "C'mon, Baby Girl, hold on," he pleaded as he felt for and found a racing pulse in her neck. Pulling his hand away he noticed blood on his fingers.

"She alive?" Rossi asked as he knelt down beside Morgan.

"Yeah, but it's bad, Rossi. He got her between the shoulder blades and she's bleeding pretty bad. Looks like she's been cut on the neck, too. We've got to get it stopped before she loses to much blood,' Morgan replied.

Pulling a handkerchief from his shirt pocket, Rossi placed it over the larger wound on her back and applied pressure to try and slow the bleeding. As he did, Penelope groaned with the pain.

"Shhh, Baby Girl, it's okay. I'm here, help is coming," Morgan soothed as he stroked her hair. "Where the hell are those medics?" he yelled to the rest of the room.

"Medics are coming now,'' Hotch announced as he arrived on the scene. "What happened?" he asked Prentice as he looked around the scene.

"We heard her screaming through the door," Prentice explained. "Morgan kicked it in just as Kowalski was attacking her from behind. It looked as if she was trying to get away but he had caught up to her and had already stabbed her once in the back when Morgan fired, taking him out. It was a clean kill."

Hotch nodded and immediately began giving out orders to secure the crime scene. "I want this place searched and processed as soon as we get Garcia out of here. I want to make sure there aren't any more victims we don't know about."

As the medics came on the scene, Morgan reluctantly began to pull back to let them in when Penelope called his name, "Derek, wait," she said, barely audible.

Kneeling back beside her Derek leaned in close so he could hear her, "What is it, Sweetheart?"

"The letter…" was all she managed to say before losing consciousness again. Believing she was rambling incoherently as a result of her injuries, he stepped back once again motioning the medics in.

Derek stood and watched as the medics took over bandaging the wound on her back, gasping as they rolled her over and he saw the cut that ran from her neck down towards her heart. "That bastard!" he muttered.

A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he turned to see Hotch standing beside him. "Go with her Derek, we'll take care of things here and meet you at the hospital when we're done. Emily told me how it all went down, and you're good. Rossi and I will talk to Strauss and keep her off your back."

"Thanks, man," he replied and started to follow as Penelope was being taken out to the ambulance. He felt as if he was in a daze, not believing that his Baby Girl had been hurt and that, once again, he had failed to keep her safe.

As he walked past her, JJ laid a hand on his arm. "Morgan, she told me about you two. She's tough and she'll pull through this. She's not going to give up on the two of you now. Garcia's been in love with you for a long time and she's not going to let this bastard take all that away from her, you'll see," she said with a smile.

Placing his hand over hers, Morgan sighed, "Thanks JJ, I hope you're right." Bending down to place a friendly kiss on her cheek, he turned and headed out to the ambulance.

"Hey Hotch!" Reid called out as he picked up the envelope and letter from the table with his gloved hand.

"What is it, Reid?"

"I think you better take a look at this. It looks like Kowalski left a note for Garcia to find. He told her exactly what his plans were and how he wanted to kill her. According to this, if we had been much later in getting here, she would have been dead for sure,' Reid explained as he handed over the note.

"Damn! Garcia sat here for God knows how long knowing exactly what was going to happen to her and from the looks of this place there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it," Rossi interjected. "That's one cold son-of-a-bitch!"

"You're right, Dave," Hotch said as he looked at the letter, "but from the sounds of this, at least it doesn't look like there were any more victims. He said he was using Garcia as a rehearsal for later victims, let's hope she was the only other one besides Laura Coleman.

"Something else here too, guys," Reid said as he continued to exam the items left on the rickety card table. "There's some blank paper here, looks like it has impressions on it where someone was writing on top of it," the young agent said as he held the paper up to the light. "I see Derek's name on here and from what little there is, it might be Garcia's handwriting. I can't make out whole sentences or anything, though."

"Garcia tried to say something about a letter just before she passed out again," Rossi said. "We thought she was just rambling. Kowalski's note told her to make use of her time, you think she spent what she thought were her last hours writing a letter to Derek?"

"If so, we need to find it before he does if possible," JJ said. "He's pretty fragile right now, I don't know if he could handle reading a goodbye letter from her."

"If it's here, I want it found," Hotch announced. "Chances are she would have hidden it so Kowalski didn't find it. I'll get on the phone with the ER and make sure they don't give it to Derek if they find it on her. As soon as we're done here, let's get to the hospital. If the worst happens, we need to be with him, especially if there's a letter."

Derek had been pacing the hospital halls for almost an hour when a nurse came up to him. "Are you Derek?" she asked.

"Yeah, Derek Morgan. How's Penelope?"

"She's been taken to surgery but I found this in the pocket of her skirt. It's addressed to you, I thought you might want it," she said as she held out a folded stack of papers with his name written on the outside. It was Penelope's handwriting, he would recognize the curlicued writing anywhere.

"Uhm, thanks," he said confused as he took the papers from her. The nurse smiled and walked off as he went over and sat in one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Slowly unfolding the papers he began to read….

My dearest Derek…

TBC.

I'm so mean aren't I? But I just love a good cliffie. I promise, I won't leave you hanging too long. And thanks again to all of my readers and reviewers…you are the best!