Disclaimer: I do not own a thing! Nothing-at-all! Well just the idea =)
A/N: Right, I feel like this chapter seems to reflect my emotion at the moment... I'm not in a very happy mood and this came so easily to me!
Don't hate me for it! =P
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I Made A Mistake! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Penelope was quiet as she lay with JJ and Emily around her. She hardly said a word, she hardly made movement and she hardly acknowledged reality. She just stared ahead, looking at absolutely nothing.
"Should we get someone?" JJ asked Emily worriedly. "I mean, this isn't normal."
"I'm fine." Penelope spoke softly and looked at JJ, their eyes connecting, the pair had hardly spoken since she'd been back, Derek had always been there or Penelope was sleeping off a new round of drugs. "I just..." she sucked in a raspy breath, the tears welling a little, "don't know what to say anymore."
JJ and Emily exchanged hurt looks before JJ spoke up. "What do you mean?"
"I had a good life." Penelope admitted and closed her eyes at the impending onslaught of tears that were lining up. "I was a Godmother, a best friend, a damn good tech and now... now I don't know what I am."
"You're still you..." Emily began.
"Am I?" Penelope asked Emily straight away. "Am I really a good role model for a child anymore? I'm not a good best friend if I chuck it for a man, I'm not a good human if I just drop what's important to me and I sure as hell am not a good tech anymore." Penelope began to get herself worked up.
It was as though she needed to apologise for her life to each and every single person, that she had to repent somehow for how her own world had quite shifted for the worst. Now it was JJ's and Emily's time to hear her beg for forgiveness. Reid and Derek had had their turns, Derek more so, but Penelope felt like just saying sorry wasn't enough. She felt she needed to prove it, she just had no idea how to that.
Penelope sucked in a difficult breath as the tears began. "I'm sorry just isn't enough anymore and I can't help but feel like I'm somehow forcing you all to be here." Penelope closed her eyes at the emotional pain. "Like because I have no one else now, that's it, you have to be here. Like I left and now I'm back I require you be here for me because I don't." Penelope told them as her eyes snapped opened and looked at them.
Emily and JJ both went to speak but Penelope needed to stop them. She didn't want to them tell her otherwise.
"I survived months of him alone, more before it got worse. I can survive this alone." She told them truthfully. "So I want you to leave. I want you to get on with life and I want you to forget that I ever came back."
JJ blinked and a tear ran down her face, Emily just stared at her feeling like she'd just been sucker punched.
"I'm not going to drag you down and I'm not going to try and get a place back in your lives. It's not fair. I'm my own person; I knew how to say no, I knew how to walk away when it got bad. So I'm making my own decisions."
"Penelope, you can't just do that again..." Emily told her, her face carry a heavy, serious look.
"What's there to change?" Penelope blinked and looked at them. Fran's words knocking more out of her than she'd first anticipated. You tore out a part of Derek, you destroyed him that day. "I rang Derek's mom last night, to try and ease his pain and I was told that I killed him and I realised I did. I did that. Penelope Garcia the one person that never wanted to hurt anyone hurt someone the worst way possible. Who's to say I didn't do the same to you?"
"You did, but we can forgive you." Emily tried.
"What about forgetting? You're going to look at me and remember what I did, because I look at all of you and I only see what I did and it hurts. I can't just expect to jump back into life with you anymore. I lost my chance to do that. I gave that up."
JJ jumped up. "I can't believe how selfish you're being Penelope." She near enough shouted at Penelope . "After all of this, after we stick by your bedside and now, because you decide, again, you just chuck us to the side. I can forgive you, and to forget would be wrong because to forget makes none of this happen and it makes these last couple of weeks of having you back pointless." JJ then grabbed coat and bag. "Soon you're going to run out of chances with us and I hope you'll be happy then. I never expected Henry's Godmother to be this mean and this selfish and this... this nasty!" She then fled the room and Penelope watched the empty space in front of her.
"She's right." Penelope whispered and closed her eyes. "I'm not who I was. I'm never going to be that person." She looked down at her hands. "I don't want to live anymore. I don't see the point. Derek doesn't need me, he just thinks he does. What he needs is someone that's going to not break his heart."
Emily sat down on the bed, yet Penelope didn't look up. "He does need you though. I've not seen him this happy in a long time and that's just by having you back, Penelope. You just need to see that."
"Please, Emily, just leave and tell the others I don't want them here. I just don't want you to stop life because I got myself here."
"You did not get yourself here."
Penelope's head snapped up. "Look at me, Emily! I allowed Kevin to do this! Not you, not JJ, not ever Derek, but me! I let him hit me and I let him destroy me! So just leave me the hell alone!"
"Will you stop this Penelope?"
"Emily, please, I can't do it anymore. Every time I'm up, I'm brought back down again. I really wanted him to kill me. Every day I lived I hated, I didn't want to live anymore. I don't think I do now."
"What so us all going to your grave is better is it?" Penelope sobs were the only answer. "Yeah I didn't think so." She then got up and left Penelope in the room alone as she cried.
Penelope, for a brief moment, saw her own grave. She thought to Battle, the beginning of her life going downhill and her chest heaved. Life was perfect as it was, but after that it all went wrong completely and now it was just a never ending battle to want to wake up every time she closed her eyes.
The depressed feeling did nothing to keep her pains at bay. They were just exacerbated it all and as much as she wanted the pains to stop she felt she needed them. Laying there she wished she had a way of hurting herself more. Penelope looked up at the ceiling, thinking of ways to contemplate getting a higher level of pain.
Then, as though robotically, Penelope brought her hand up and began to rip the wires off of her. She didn't even know why she still had them; she didn't need them to read her levels of a broken heart. The oxygen tube got pulled out and then she sat up a little. She just pulled the chest tube out and bit down on her lip to stop the howl of pain; she looked at her IV next and ripped it from her hand.
It was as soon as she found a way to get off the bed she was stopped. Derek's hands grabbed her as she began to feel faint. Her head pounding, the healing incision mark to her head pulsating, her breathing a heavy heave and she just collapsed into his arms the moment she looked at his mom.
"Baby Girl," he said and he laid her back down, he saw her side then, he saw the amount of blood that was gathering all over and looked behind him. "Someone get the doctor!" He yelled and Hotch ran for a doctor, Fran coming into the room. "Penelope, why did you do this?" Penelope remained silently, her eyes staring, but she seemed to not be there at all mentally. "Penelope... I need you to tell me why you're acting like this?"
"I destroyed you." Penelope whispered almost inaudibly, but Derek heard it loud and clear. Her good hand grabbed his arm strongly, while the other latched on in the strongest grip it could do. She then began to push him away. "I'm always going to be sorry for what I did to you and I deserve all that I get, Derek." Her eyes flashed to look at him, and Derek could read every ounce of her hidden pain. "I don't – deserve – you." She told him and released her arms from him, her breathing still tight, her eyes still alive with pain. "I never did and I definitely don't anymore."
"Shh... Baby, you don't know what you're saying."
"Tell me you don't look at me and remember what I've put you through? I shouldn't have left that night, I should've stayed there, this might all be over now had I done that."
"Don't you dare say that!" Derek finally shouted at her. He'd been "You think it's easy for us to lose you? We've never felt so together since we got you back Penelope. So tell me why you don't deserve us?"
"I'm not good enough." She told him and she didn't even acknowledge the nurse checking her side out, nor she take any notice of the pain that was searing through her side.
"Why aren't you good enough?"
Penelope's headache began to get worse as her thoughts grew. "I was a nobody when you first met me, I don't get what made me so special for you to ever want me in your life."
"You're not a nobody, you're special to me because from the first time I saw you I wanted you in my life and I can vouch for everyone that they felt the same. Never underestimate yourself, Baby Girl."
"It's hard not to." She told him as her pain threshold broke and she just began to cry as every bit of numbness in her disbanded and left her alone to fight.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I Made A Mistake! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It was only later that night when the doctor had tended to Penelope's self inflicted wounds and made her comfortable after a psych consult that Fran asked for permission to spend some time alone with Penelope.
The moment Penelope felt Fran's hand slide into hers she squeezed it. Lapping up the softness of the motherly touch.
"How you feeling Penelope?" Fran asked her gently, her tone of voice loving and delicate.
Penelope pulled the oxygen mask down and looked at the older woman. "I just want it all to stop, Fran." Penelope told her and blinked tiredly. "I'm so fed up of fighting all of this."
"All of what?"
"The pains, the sadness... I thought he loved me. I really thought he loved me and I stupidly believed him. It was just too late for me to realise that I really was in love with Derek." Penelope closed her eyes and successfully stopped all crying that was readying. "I was in too deep by the time I finally realised."
"It's never too late." Fran told her and leaned in a little bit. "You know there is a group of people outside waiting for you. They're waiting to come in here and look after you because at the end of the day that's what family do. I'm sorry for what I said on the phone, I was hurt at you just dropping out on all of our lives. Mine included. I lost a daughter that day Penelope and that hurt me badly."
"I didn't think of anyone..."
"But you are now and that's what matters. You're thinking so strongly of everyone else, you're forgetting about you, Penelope. You were tricked by a man you loved. The heart is a strange thing but ultimately it was strong enough to get you to go to Derek's, to get him to help you out." Fran told her with a small smile. "If you didn't know the right thing you wouldn't have left that house when you found the chance too. Kevin is getting what he deserves and so are you."
"I know. I deserve all this pain." Penelope spoke quietly.
"No," Fran began, "That's not what I meant, you deserve people that are going to protect you. That's what a family do. You just need to realise that sooner rather than later." Fran could see something in Penelope's eyes flickered, they all knew they were dealing with Penelope taken over with depression now, but they knew they could win.
They just needed to be prepared for the rollercoaster of emotions and the mood swings that Penelope would go through when she was at her lowest points.
"You know I'm right Penelope. Derek's your hero; you just need to say it more."
Penelope's hand quizzed the oxygen mask with anticipation. "He's always been my hero. That's why I love him."
Fran smiled, the love the pair shared for one another was glaringly obvious. "He loves you too." Fran just got up and kissed Penelope's forehead gently. "Get some sleep. I love you, Penelope. Just remember we all do." She told her and then went to the door and got Derek in first.
He did his usual, he got on the bed and took a restless Penelope in his arms and they all watched him place the oxygen mask back, make sure she was one hundred percent comfortable and cradled her as she finally feel asleep peacefully.
It was going to be a long recovery but they just needed one another to stay afloat.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I Made A Mistake! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A/N: It's not going to be easy but there's gotta be some break soon! I promise it'll happen!
Let me know! =)