This is for The Candy Land Challenge at Chit Chat on Author's corner. The prompt is: Morgan/Garcia, cadbury buttons.

Listen When You Talk

February 2008

"Derek Morgan, I love you!" she whispered, in a choked up but sweet voice as she looked at him standing there in her office, his offering in his hand.

Usually she gave him some kind of candy treat on or around Valentine's Day but him, being a man, would act like he barely knew that holiday existed. It was always a hallmark holiday in his book. One that The Derek Morgan didn't do.

So for him to bring her candy this year was special. But the kind of candy that it was made it even more so. Cadbury buttons had been her Irish grandmother's favorite kind of candy and she would send some to Penelope every year on her birthday. You could only get it overseas. She hadn't had any in a good fifteen years.

Just a couple months before, when Derek was staying with Penelope after she was shot, they talked a lot about their childhoods, making up for all the conversations they never had before when they were too busy just flirting. She didn't know he had been listening so closely, taking it all in like that, and that he'd remember it now.

He told her, with a grin on his lips, "I know you do but I never get tired of hearing it."

She took the candy from him. "How did you find this? They don't sell these in this country, do they? I've looked and looked for them in stores."

"Nope. You ain't gonna find these in any store around here. Trust me on that. Every clerk I asked looked at me like I was nuts. You gotta go online to order these little babies."

She opened one up and took a bite. "Mmmm."

"Garcia, there is no moaning on company time."

"Mmmmm," she moaned again, standing up and moving very near him. "That's a silly rule."

He gave her a stern look. "Woman, don't start."

She teased, as she ran her hand over his chest. "I'm not doing anything..."

Penelope still found it hard to believe that a month ago she was telling him "You don't want me like that," and now they were dating and it was very clear he wanted her every which way he could get her.

She continued, as she blew on his ear, "But thanking my hunk of burning love for my Valentine Day's present."

Derek moved back. "Tonight you will pay for giving me that look when you know I can't do a thing about it here."

She giggled. "Oh, my love, when you punish me it just makes me want to be badder the next time. Remember there are blind spots around here where no cameras see a thing so when I run out of this chocolate I could always come looking for you to get my next fix. You are the chocolate that tastes best after all."

He growled at her. "You are so getting a spanking tonight! Later, crazy woman!"

With that said he walked out of her office and she sat down in her chair, picked up the Cadbury buttons and spun around, a dreamy smile on her lips. Her mother would like Derek because of his thoughtfulness and the way he protects Penelope. Her grandmother, who had a bawdy sense of humor, would find him deliciously sexy and tell Penelope to never let him go. She wished that they could meet him.

But they weren't here anymore. All she had now were her memories. And a man in her life who understood just how important those memories were to her. A man who would order chocolates from Europe just to make her smile.

He wanted her that way. She had been nuts to ever doubt it. Thank God he had a way of making her see the light. Cause none of her ex-lovers would have sent her Cadbury buttons on Valentine's Day. Only Derek Morgan would do something perfect like that.

THE END