AN: Gah, you know what is depressing (besides this story so far?)? After this next episode, Carbon Copy, we have to wait almost an entire month before we get anymore new Criminal minds. Bleh. Will try and keep this going so we have some M/G action to keep us entertained. The lyrics featured in this chapter are from Red's new album Release the Panic. Check it out, they are AMAZING! Anyway, the first half of the chapter is pre-Magnum Opus and the second half picks up where the cameras went left off.

Chapter 4

It had been a week. Penelope Garcia sat in her bright kitchen and thought of Reid. It had been a week since Maeve had died, and a week since anyone had seen or heard from Reid. She knew he was still alive because when she came to leave him a basket, he had sometimes taken the previous one inside. She couldn't imagine how he was feeling. She sighed and sipped her coffee. She would clean up the kitchen and then stop by Reid's on her way to work. She genuinely missed her Junior G Man and his random snipets of facts. She worried that she would never see him smile again.

She sighed again, then got up and put her coffee cup in the sink. It felt too quiet in her kitchen, so she pressed the play button on her IPOD. Then she sighed again as she heard the first haunting chimes of the melody. It would be this song. It reminded her so much of Reid.

Darkness creeps into day light
You're leaving
Treasure sitting in our mind
The memories
The time we had was fleeting
The strength is just believing now

The world I know can hate you
The world I know can break you
But as you go remember I'm by your side.

The love within you can heal these tears that burn
And through it all remember
I'm by your side as you go.

She finished the dishes, thinking of Reid. She really hoped that he knew they were all thinking of him. That they were all there for him, if he needed them. She turned off the music. Looking at the basket she had packed for Reid last night, she grabbed a pink pad of paper and wrote a note for him on impulse. She tucked it into the basket, grabbed her jacket and headed out the door.

xxx

As they said goodbye to Reid and headed out of his apartment later that week, Morgan put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. She turned and looked at Reid's closed door one last time. "Do you think he's going to be okay?" she asked him.

Derek sighed. She could feel his fingers toying with her hair. "I don't know, mama. I suppose he just needs time. Today was a good start though, at least he finally let us in." After avoiding them for quite some time, Reid had finally started communicating with them again to help with a case of an artist in San Francisco who was creating art work from the blood of his victims. He had even traveled to San Francisco to meet up with the team. When they had returned, Reid had asked them to help clean up his apartment.

"Yeah, I suppose," Penelope sighed. "Want to grab some dinner? " The last thing she wanted right now was to be alone. She felt so tired . . . she was tired of worrying about all of them all of the time. She worried about Derek and Reid the most right now. It just seemed like the hits kept coming these past few months. They weren't getting anywhere on the unsub who seemed to be replicating their closed cases. Derek had been shot, albeit in his bullet proof vest. That still rattled the crap out of her. And poor Reid. He hadn't been in many (any?) relationships in the years that she had known him. To have this happen when he had finally met someone . . . All that she could think was that Reid was far, far stronger than she was.

Derek smiled at her. She wondered if she would ever get tired of that bright, amazing smile of his. Nope, not happening. "Of course, gorgeous. Dine in or carry out?"

"Hmmmm," she tapped her lips and made a dramatic show of thinking about it. "Decisions, decisions."

He playfully bumped her with his hip. "Woman, you are crazy. Make up your mind already!"

"Fine, fine. Carry out. I'm in the mood for comedy and ice cream."

"We are not eating ice cream for dinner," he laughed.

She giggled at him. "Ice cream is for after handsome. And you call me the crazy one!"

Thirty minutes later they were eating some delicious Italian pasta in her kitchen. They ate in a companionable silence, as had been their way lately. They often ate dinner together in the days following the team's return from a case. Garcia found she had longed for Morgan's company more since his near-shooting had reminded her how easy it would be for him to be lost to her forever. He was always on the front lines, always the one to take the risks. She sighed and shook her head. That line of thought would do her no good.

"What's going on in that beautiful brain, woman?" he asked. Damn it, of course he'd noticed her abstraction. He was, after all, a profiler.

"You know, sometimes I wish you could turn that profiling thing off for a while!" she practically snarled at him.

He laughed at her. "No such luck."

She wrinkled her nose. "I know, it doesn't make it fair though."

He smiled, then looked suddenly serious again. "Seriously, Penelope, what's up?" he asked, concern in his voice and in his eyes. "Where did you go off to just now?"

She groaned and pushed up from the table, carrying her dishes to the sink. "I hate profilers!" she ranted. She heard his chair scrape the floor as he stood up, and then felt him behind her. She turned, and he tilted her chin up so that she could meet his eyes. She sighed. "You are so persistent. . . " she groaned.

"It's why you love me," he joked.

But it was too close to the truth today, and she was too raw from all of it to hide anything. "I do, you know," she whispered. "That's part of the problem."

He folded her into his arms, making her feel warm and safe. "That's not a problem, Baby Girl. That's a blessing."

She closed her eyes and hugged him back. "Stay?" she asked quietly.

"Always," he breathed into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.