The State Verses Derek Morgan Ch 35
Family by family they arrived and walked what felt and seemed like the longest walk of their life to get to the front door of the funeral home, once there they stopped and took a deep breath before heading inside. The family all sat together on 2 pews, on the first pew was Dave, Fran, Sarah, Desi, Shane and Mia, on the second pew was JJ, Reid, Em, Hotch and Tasha were all sitting together.
Shane looked over his shoulder and saw a beautiful dark haired woman sitting beside JJ and when JJ saw him looking she said, "Shane this is Tasha, Tasha this is Shane", the two shook hands and Shane said, "it's nice to meet you", Tasha said, "same here" as everybody sat waiting for the service to start.
Pew by pew the funeral home filled up and soon there was only standing room and the entire back of the room was filled with people, Reid smiled and said, "they're all here for you Garcia, they all love you, we all love you now and forever". JJ reached out and intertwined fingers with Reid and said, "I love you Spence and I don't know how I would make it through this without you", he looked at her and said, "I love you too Jayje and I'd be just as lost without you being with me".
A few minutes later the service started, a friend of Dave's agreed to speak a few words about Penelope, "she was an amazing person" he said as he looked around the room at all of the people that were there. Dave nodded his head as his friend Jerome also said, "she was one of the kindest people you'd ever meet, always helping everybody, she will definitely be missed".
Over the next 90 minutes various people stood up and spoke, they talked about what a wonderful person Penelope was and how she had one of the biggest, kindest hearts of anybody they'd ever met. Each member of the team talked about how much they loved and missed her and how they were glad that they'd met her and how they wished they could have spent more time with her.
Shane even got up and said, "Penelope Grace Garcia was one of the best people I've ever met, she was always happy, always smiling and always willing and able to help anybody that needed help". He continued by saying, "I've known Penelope for years and she had a way of making people trust her and she always delivered on that trust, always".
After the service closed Dave, Hotch, Reid, Shane, Anderson and Kevin walked up to the coffin and one on each end and two on each side picked up the coffin and carried it out and loaded it into the hearse. Everybody followed the hearse to Penelope's final resting place a few blocks away and as Fran looked around she couldn't help but smile because Penelope would love this place because the area was covered in flowers, trees and beautiful bushes.
Everybody stood around the grave as a final prayer was given for Penelope's family and friends then slowly everybody started slowly walking off of the cemetary, everybody but her family, they stayed behind. As they huddled together they each said, "we love you", Fran said, "honey, Derek couldn't be here today but he wanted too, he loved you so much Penelope, you, you were the love of my baby boy's life and he will love and miss you until the day he dies".
As the family started slowly making their way toward their cars Shane glanced over his shoulder and said, "goodbye my black queen, you are loved and you are missed by us all" before turning back around and continued making his way back to rejoin the others. When they climbed into their cars Reid said, "I still can't believe she's gone", JJ put her hand on top of his and said, "none of us can Spence, none of us can".
When the cars started pulling away from the cemetary everybody turned around and said, "goodbye Penelope" one final time before their cars disappeared around the curve, it had been a long, exhausting and oh so sad day but they had made it through and they did it by pulling together and they did it for one person, Penelope Grace Garcia.