AN: I have to thank my girl evgrrl09. Dude, she rains me in sometimes and that is good for everyone. Thank you for all the support. I love this story so I am cranking it out.

Derek let his eyes flutter open for the first time in days. He tried to register his surroundings, there were white walls, bright lights, and everything smelled clean. It was a huge contrast to the room he was being held in.

"Morgan." The voice caught him off guard. "Nice of you to join the land of the living."

Derek turned to the noise, seeing Rossi sitting cross-legged in a chair in the far corner of the room. "Rossi?"

"Glad to see you're finally awake," Hotch said, making his presence known.

"Yeah, you had us worried there," Emily stated.

"What happened?" Morgan asked feeling the pain of his wounds take hold of him.

"You lived, that's what happened," Rossi commented. "You're the lucky one."

Derek looked down at his arm, where he was feeling the worst pain. His arm was in a cast and his shoulder in a sling. He moved the sheets to see bandages along his abdomen.

Hotch cleared his throat. "You've been out for two days. When they got you here, they popped your shoulder back in and had to do surgery on your arm and where you were stabbed. There's an infection where you were burned with the rod. But the doctors are getting it under control. You also have two broken toes.

Morgan nodded as he looked around the room. He saw JJ, Reid, Rossi, Prentiss, and Hotch. There was a distinct member of the group missing and his heart sank.

He took a deep breath, the best he could. "How did you find me?"

"Garcia was able to backtrack the servers the bartender used to pinpoint your location. When she got to the camera, she was able to turn it back on. At first she thought you were dead but then you lifted your head," Hotch explained.

She was looking at me, he thought. "I heard the click and thought the guy was coming back, but then I saw the light on the camera."

"Yeah, she was able to get your exact location. When we found you, you were barely conscious," Hotch continued.

Morgan closed his eyes. He could remember the team coming in, him telling them who it was and then… He shot his eyes open. Garcia wasn't there, and the last thing he remembered was her running towards him and then stopping and going into Hunter's arms.

"We got him, Morgan," Rossi said, looking at Morgan's pained expression. "You don't need to worry about him anymore. Hunter was able to send a unit to pick him up at the bar. He put up a fight, but they got him."

"Turns out, the FBI were tracking his brother and his terrorist and anti government activities. They were trailing him. When they finally had enough substantial evidence they moved into arrest him. He ended up putting up a fight, causing one of the counter terrorist teams to shoot him," Hotch said.

Morgan nodded his head. He was glad the guy was no longer an issue. But he knew the BAU would have handled him. What was really bothering him with the fact that Garcia was nowhere to be found. He scanned the room once more. "Where is Garcia?"

"She went home the next morning after the Unsub was caught," Reid said.

"She wasn't needed here anymore, and seeing that you were a part of the BAU, Strauss gave us the week off. Garcia didn't want to stay around," Hotch said.

Morgan panicked, his heart starting to race again. She didn't even stick around to make sure he was okay. They were done, and there was no way him being stuck in this hospital bed he would be able to fix them.

Penelope sat in her empty apartment. She had gotten a text from Emily saying Morgan had woken up and that they were going to stick around for a few days to make sure he was okay.

She shook her head. The first chance she got, she left New York, and if it were up to her she would never step foot in that state again. She said goodbye to Hunter, and hopped on the next plane out. Hunter was a nice guy, but not the right guy for her, not when he reminded her so much of Morgan.

Leaving New York and Morgan in a hospital bed was the final chapter; she could finally close the book on Derek Morgan.

She looked over at the box in the corner of the room. Try as she might, she wasn't able to bring the box to the dumpster after packing everything that reminded her of Derek the past couple of months. After she was done gathering everything together that night, she had planned to take it to the garbage, but every time she tried she couldn't do it.

Not anymore. She went over to the box getting ready to finally remove him from her life when a loud clap of thunder jolted her. She looked out the window to see a monsoon. She shook her head with a laugh.

"I'm finally ready to chuck it, and you decide it's funny to throw a storm in my way?" she said, looking out of the window.

As soon as the storm let up, she was going to rid herself of the box that had been haunting her. She moved back to the couch, taking her cup of tea in hand as she decided to sit and look out the window at the falling rain.

Storms always seemed to calm and renew her. She let the feeling of the rain wash away her bottled up emotions. She always felt like she could take on anything after a storm.

She sat there, glancing at the box and then back to the window. She had learned to live her life the past couple of months without him, proving to herself she could do it for the rest of her life.

Maybe it was a good thing she went to New York and saw him. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason might have been the fact that, she needed to see him one last time to get the closer that she needed.

It took everything inside of her not to run to his side and be there every step of the way during his recovery. But that wasn't her role anymore. She was not the best friend, or colleague that would drop everything to be by his side.

She sighed again. Somewhere deep inside her, even after he shattered her, she still referred to him as her best friend, and even lover. She would catch herself fantasizing about the night they had shared, and the possibility of having forever with him. However, every time she let that fantasy take hold of her, she'd be struck cold with the overwhelming feeling of the reality of the situation.

Derek Morgan never loved her. Not even as a friend. A friend wouldn't have waited until the last day possible to tell her he had taken the New York job. A best friend wouldn't have come over to her apartment and finally give her everything she had ever wanted, only to leave the next morning without mentioning a word to her about his plans.

His actions cut her to the core. She had walked around numb after he left, but for the first time, she knew she was going to make it out alive. Derek wasn't her lover, wasn't her friend, and it was time she moved on.

She could finally start to stitch her heart back together one tread at a time.

She got up to go get another cup of tea. As she padded her way over to the kitchen, a knock on her door stopped her. She frowned looking at the clock. It was eleven thirty at night. There was no one she knew that would come around at this time.

She cautiously opened the door, only to see a drenched, broken and battered, Derek Morgan leaning against the doorframe.