Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds!
A/N: Another chapter in the light of an alive Penelope! Hope you enjoy =)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From Heaven, With Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Penelope breathed as she opened her eyes, sure that the freedom from pain meant that she had died during her medicated sleep. She was scared that she had bypassed limbo and was now waking up in heaven where she would remain. After all, she had told Derek she loved him, that had been in her hands. However, her life, like anyone else's, was all in the hands of God. No one held the power. He could've decided to take her after all.
As she became aware, she noticed there was calm around her, a minor hustle of activity to her left, darkness out at her right and there was the low hum and bleeps of several machines around her.
This wasn't heaven. She wasn't dead.
Breathing in, she felt the dullness of pains, but they were nowhere near as crippling as they were earlier and she was thankful for that. She tried to work out for herself what damage was really caused from the hit and run and the only conclusion she could make out were from the bandages and casts on her body was there was too much to verify. She knew it was bad when she felt a stiffness in her hips and back and knew there was going to be major damage there.
"You broke your pelvis," Derek's voice came husky and low, evident he had just woken up and had been watching. "The force of the car near enough broke you in half," He leaned in from his seat and gave her a half smile. "Impact fracture to your leg, major internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, broken cheekbone, blunt force trauma to the head," He quickly told her and he could tell he had done right by telling her everything. Derek sucked in a deep breath before continuing, "You lost a lot of blood and the doc said he lost you too many times on the table. When he came up to us, he told us that your body wasn't responding to any form of stimuli, you were clinically brain dead from the trauma sustained," Derek hadn't realised he was crying until a tear fell and hit his hand. "It was Hotch's decision to keep you on life support just for a couple of days," he looked up at her, "I seriously thought I had lost you."
"Oh Derek," Penelope said, she was barely with it and the overload of information had done nothing for her frame of mind. "Would it be any consolation if I said," She paused again, her throat closing up at the dryness, "heaven was lonely without you?"
She watched him smile at her and she smiled back weakly and slowly she put her IV bound hand out for him to take. She didn't have enough energy to finish it, but Derek took her hand and moved closer to her, kissing her knuckles intensely.
"You and those damn shoes," He teasingly berated her and shook his head. "You couldn't have gone for a shop on our side of the road."
"I didn't expect someone to drive at that speed at a crossing," Penelope said back, "Plus," she swallowed deeply, "I was distracted."
"With?"
"You," She told him simply in her quiet tone. "You make me so happy, and I knew that if I didn't bottle it I'd be able to tell you everything."
"Shall I let you in on a little secret?" Derek asked and Penelope nodded at him, "I had dinner reservations for the next day, but I got stood up." He watched her face cloud with weary confusion, "You see, the girl I was taking on a proper date was getting beauty sleep." Derek told her and leant in, wiping away one of the few straggled tears that fell down Penelope's face. "Big things are happening between us, Penelope. They were things that I have never felt before were forming, and I realise now that what I've been searching for my entire life, has been stood in front of me the entire time."
Kissing her hand again he just looked at her for a moment, completely losing the words he had memorised all the time he thought he had no second chance. Now however, with her giving him the best amount of her energy he was just speechless. All words that were easily formed were used and all he could do was drink in her consciousness.
"I'm going to be sitting in front of you for a while," Penelope assumed teasingly and his concentration broke as he looked up at her. "I'm really not going anywhere."
"When you said you couldn't leave," Derek started to ask her, "What did you mean?"
Penelope breathed in deeply and smiled, "I saw them," She started to say softly, "My parents. I knew something had gone wrong, an-and I was there – in the road. I was screaming at you that'd I would be okay and I stood with you while the ambulance left, an-and then I was with them and it was so bright and painless, and then I was given an ultimatum."
Derek could sense her getting worked up over all of this, but he was so caught up that all he could think of was sensing Penelope around him the entire time he was panicking. Now he realised that she had been with him in some sense.
"Acceptance and then I'd get five memories," She said as she felt herself succumbing to the exhaustion that swamped her body. She closed her eyes briefly before continuing and smiled, "Then I was given one more memory. Just one thing that I had always wanted," She looked at him, her eyes so full of hope and dreams and then she smiled meekly, "It was perfect."
"What was it?" He asked her gently, "What was the memory?"
"Don't laugh," Penelope warned him, her gaze not so full of faith now. Derek agreed and took her hands, "We were married and we'd just found out I was pregnant."
Derek felt his breathing constrict, "Fill my dreams?" He whispered, more to himself than Penelope.
"What did you say?" Penelope asked and she pushed herself up a little up a little alert.
"You shouldn't be moving," Derek calmed her and took her hand in his, trying to hope the moment had passed and he didn't need to explain.
"Derek," She breathed out, "Please, just tell me."
He could see just how agitated she was becoming and he wanted her to calm, so he sighed and looked down at her hand. "Fill my dreams?" He questioned and looked back up at her.
Penelope bit her lip a little before replying, "I'll be there the moment you close your eyes, Handsome. Like always," She finished and just watched Derek's expression and gulped deeply as a tear travelled down her cheek just as she remembered how she felt whilst wrapped up in that memory. "You've just got to close your eyes."
Derek bolted upright, his expression somewhat wild whilst confusion gripped him fiercely, "Wha-wha-how did you know that?" He asked her and his eyebrows furrowed together. "No one knows that."
"That was my memory," Penelope whispered at him, "The one thing I always wanted, it was that."
Shaking his head, Derek stood up and paced, "It couldn't have been." He paused at the end of her bed and continued to look more than a little confused in that instance. "That was one of my dreams."
Penelope watched him, she wished she had the ability to just jump up and stop him, to hold him, to kiss him how she was literally yearning to do. Alas, she was trapped where she was and she only had the power of words to win him over.
"I only came back because they knew how much we loved one another. I was given one more chance because of what we felt," Penelope told him as he took up his notion of pacing back and forth. "I had to tell you that I'm in love with you or I run out of chances, Derek. It hurt so much to face the prospect of heaven without you and all I could think of was the woman that you'd marry and I don't know," She paused as she let out a sob, "I was scared that by the time you came to me, you wouldn't love me anymore and I'd just be all alone forever. I'm still scared."
Derek stopped pacing and went over to her; he sat on the bed and took her in his arms. He was easy and gentle with his handling of her fragile body but he had missed any proper form of contact with Penelope over the last few days. Even though she had been right in front of her, he needed to really feel her presence.
"We're going to grow old together, and when you go back, you'll have me and we'll just have to carry on what we started here there. There is never going to be another woman in my life. Not now, not ever."
He calmed her and then rested her back down, and he offered her a little smile and wiped the tears away swiftly.
"You've got nothing to be scared of anymore, Baby Girl."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- From Heaven, With Love -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-