The quirky confidence that Penelope Garcia usually prided herself on seemed to have completely deserted her, leaving her clammy and anxious. She paced back and forth in front of the heavy wooden doors, wringing her hands together and worrying about everything and anything.
"Pen, come sit." Caroline urged, but the older female shook her head stubbornly and kept pacing. "Pacing a hole in the floor isn't going to do anything."
"Why are you not pacing?" Garcia replied exasperatedly. "You are the one who usually always follows the rules. Why does this not worry you?"
Caroline thought for a moment. "Look, there's something I have to tell you." She replied uneasily.
"Ladies." A dark haired woman had opened the doors and was peering out at them. "He's ready for you."
Caroline gave Pen a we'll-talk-later look and entered first, Garcia following behind.
The director, a balding, tired looking man, sat at his desk, barely acknowledging them as they entered. The assistant disappeared out through the doors, leaving the three of them completely alone.
"Sit." His words were harsh and frosty. When his green eyes looked up at them, they were stony. The girls stumbled into seats, trying their best to look professional despite being petrified.
Penelope half-expected to see a legion of security guards come in to transport them to prison. When said guards didn't seem to be showing up, she relaxed against the back of her seat a bit.
"I will dispense with the formalities, because you both know why you are here." Director Fesnick looked up from his stack of paperwork and seemed to soften a bit when he saw how scared they were. "Please, relax a bit. You aren't going to prison, if that's what you're worried about." He removed his glasses and began polishing them on his shirt.
"What will happen to us?" Penelope asked. "Sir." She tacked on nervously at the end.
"Well, your actions, as noble as they were, will not go without consequences." He returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose. "You took a federal jet without permission and gave no notice to your superiors. You will have to appear in court, but only to defend yourselves."
"So, we're okay?" Caroline frowned.
"Not even close." He grumbled. "Even if the Board of Directors does not choose to punish you legally, you will, at minimum, lose your jobs here. Unless, of course, you choose to resign before that happens."
"Resign?" Penelope felt a conflicting of different emotions-panic, worry, relief. It was hard to keep them all under control.
"Yes. If you are officially dismissed, which I assume will occur by the end of the week, it will be a pretty dark stain on your resume. At least if you resign, you can lessen the blow." Seeing their confused faces, he sighed and leaned back. "Honestly, ladies, if it were up to me, you wouldn't receive punishment at all. I received a phone call yesterday morning-" He pulled a notecard from his top drawer and squinted at it, "-from a Jennifer Jareau?"
He returned the card to its original location. Penelope and Caroline frowned a one another in surprise. "She was….adamant about your help on a missing kids case."
"She called you?"
Ignoring Caroline's question, he folded his hands and said "I will try my best to minimize the damage, but you need to make your decision."
"I already have." Caroline murmured quietly. She reached under her coat and pulled out a manila envelope. "I would like to resign, effective immediately."
"Very well. You may leave if you'd like. I'll be in touch by the end of the week." Caroline got up to leave, ignoring Garcia's whispers of protests.
"Can I have a moment?" She whipped her head around to look at Fesnick, who nodded reluctantly. Penelope shot out of her seat and practically ran out of the office, stumbling over her stupid heels.
She caught Caroline just as she was about to get on the elevator. "What the hell was that? You're resigning?"
"You aren't?" Caroline sighed and stepped out of the elevator so she could talk with her friend. "Look, I'm sorry."
"What are you gonna do?"
"That's what I wanted to tell you earlier. I've been offered a job in the state department. Apparently an unnamed source from the FBI gave them a high recommendation of me. I got the call yesterday." Caroline placed her hands on her friend's shoulders and forced the girl to look at her. "I will finally get to be in the same city as my family. Wouldn't you like to say the same?"
With that, Caroline left her alone in the hall, disappearing into the elevator.
OoOoOoO
There was a rapt knock on the door, and he paused the game that was on the hotel television. He stood and made his way towards the offending noise warily. He was surprised when Penelope stood on the other side, tear tracks on her cheeks.
Before Derek could even react, or ask her what was wrong, she was kissing him.
At first, he melted into it. He kicked the door closed and pressed her up against it, one hand on her cheek and the other on her waist, pulling her close. She was intoxicating, and each kiss drew him in deeper and deeper and it threatened to drown him. It was such a good feeling, like a warm fire on a winter's night, that he didn't want to pull away.
But he did.
"What happened?" He breathed. His thumb skated over the tears that slowly snaked down her cheeks.
"I resigned." She replied once she caught her breath, shaky from the crying fest that had taken place in the car on the way to the hotel. She laughed, a few stragglers escaping from her eyes. She removed her hands from his waist and rubbed the tears away. She laughed again feeling ridiculous for doing so. The sound was music to his ears.
"Is that a good thing?" He frowned, chocolate eyes watching her warily.
"I just realized that I wasn't home there." She shrugged. "I mean the long hours, the grisly scenes, the nightmares, they were all bad. But, at least I felt like I was doing something to make the world better."
"Penelope, the team was never the same without you." He tucked a stray blonde hair behind her ear.
"But I guess the real question is, are you coming back?" She raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
"Oh absolutely."
OoOoOoO
3 weeks later
"How you doing there, champ?" Rossi clapped Hotch playfully on the shoulder, standing next to him beside the grill. Several burgers, along with two racks of ribs and a special veggie burger for the resident vegetarian, sizzled on the racks before him.
"Better than Reid." He gestured towards the young prodigy, who was furrowing his eyebrows at a chessboard. Emily smirked at him from across the table.
"Face it, pretty boy, she's got you beat." Morgan teased, ruffling the guy's hair.
"Not possible." Reid grumbled, furrowing his brow.
"Em, don't beat him too bad." JJ came to stand next to her raven-haired friend. "You don't want to bruise his ego. We'll hear about it for weeks."
"Momma!" JJ almost had her knees knocked out from behind as Henry careened into her. "Come play with me!" He grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the table, towards the lone soccer ball that rested in the grass. She passed a glance to Will, who smirked and leaned back in his chair next to Reid.
A breeze ruffled the table cloth, and brought with it a familiar sound of car doors shutting. The new guests entered through the front of the house, and after a moment, appeared on the back patio next to the boys.
"Penelope, my dear!" Rossi greeted her fondly and kissed her cheeks. "And Caroline."
"Thank you so much for having us." He hugged her without hesitation.
"Any friend of Penelope, is a friend of mine." It was then he noticed the little blonde head peeking out from behind her legs. "Who's this?"
Caroline stepped aside and picked up the little boy so he was eye level with Rossi. "Austin, can you say hi?"
"Hi." He murmured. When he noticed Henry kicking the ball around. He wiggled around and Caroline put him down so he could go play.
"Checkmate." Although spoken quietly, it echoed around the yard like a declaration of war. The girls made their way over to the picnic table to make sure that it had actually happened. That Emily had actually defeated the chess master himself. True to her word, she had checkmated him.
"But…" he mumbled, looking like a child that had his favorite toy stolen. "I never lose."
"Well, I think this calls for a drink." Rossi made his way over to the group, holding a bottle of wine.
"Wine in the middle of the day? You rebel." Penelope chuckled as a glass was poured for her. Caroline grabbed a beer from the cooler near the end of the table. Will, Emily and Hotch grabbed one as well, while the rest were handed glasses of wine.
"I would like to propose a toast." Rossi lifted his glass, and the others followed suit. "To our friends! I am glad you all were able to join us for what I'm sure is going to be an amazing meal."
"Well, of course, I cooked it." Hotch replied sarcastically. That earned him an elbow from Morgan.
"May we keep these friendships, until the day we die. Salud."
"Salud." Echoed among them.
"Does it sound needy if I say that I reeeaallllyyy don't want you to leave?" JJ came over to Pen and threw her arm around her.
"Well, that's good because I'm sticking around for a while." Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a shiny FBI badge.
"No way!" Emily practically ran to her, and threw her arms around her.
"Yes way." This time it was Morgan who responded, also brandishing a new badge from his back pocket.
"Whaaaat no way." Reid stood and came over to them. "You guys too?" He also brandished a badge, looking smug.
"So you guys are staying?" Hotch looked sideways at Garcia, a smile playing on his lips.
"If that's okay with you, boss." Morgan threw his arm around her shoulders.
"Absolutely." His smirk widened into a full blown smile. "Welcome home."
One hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove, but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.
-unknown
OoOoOoO
Aww…Anyways, as you can probably tell, this is the end. If you guys want a sequel, let me know.
Thanks for reading. I own nothing. Boomie out.