Title: Denial
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Morgan/Garcia
Prompt: #21 Laguz (fear, avoidance)
Word count: 1844
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Neither the show nor the characters belong to me, they belong to CBS. Nonetheless, I love to borrow them from time to time.
Summary: Part 5/? of the ‘Loser Lynch’ series. Derek tries to convince Penelope to see the specialist Reid suggested.
warnings: spoilers for season 3
He drove as fast as he could. Something was wrong. He could sense that, he just knew it. Something was terribly wrong. And he needed to convince her to come with him especially since he wouldn’t be able to check on her for who knows how long when they were on a case. Why wouldn’t Hotch let him stay behind?! Maybe he should try and take a few days off “ even though he was sure Hotch wouldn’t let him.
When Derek arrived at their apartment he wasn’t the least bit surprised that Lynch opened the door. “I want to talk to Penelope.” Derek snarled.
“She’s not feeling well.” Lynch said blocking the door. “Can I deliver a message to her?”
“No, I want to SEE her.” he was already breathing fire. Why the hell didn’t Lynch just let him in to talk to Penelope?!
“As I said she is ill.” the other man shrugged. “And she’s asleep. I don’t want to wake her up.”
“Well, you will have to ‘cause I want to talk to her, NOW!” Derek said staring the man in front of him down. He wouldn’t leave without at least having seen her.
“I’m sorry.” Lynch replied. “I thought you would understand that she needs rest.”
Frowning Derek took a step forward: “Listen, Lynch, you’ll let me talk to her now or I’ll arrest you for kidnapping.”
“I didn’t kidnap anyone.” he objected.
“You can tell all that to your lawyer afterwards.” Derek grumbled.
Lynch seemed to think it over and then said: “You can’t do this. You… you wouldn’t…”
“I wouldn’t rely too much on that.” Derek said and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Finally Lynch gave into him and let him come in. This was getting harder than he’d imagined it to be. Even though he’d known that Agent Morgan would try and defeat his plan. But he wouldn’t give up that easily. Should Derek Morgan talk to her and assure himself that Penelope WAS sick and depressed. Maybe then he would finally leave her alone.
“Thanks.” Derek said as Lynch had led him to their bedroom and shut the door in his face. He needed to talk to Penelope alone!
She was lying on the bed obviously asleep and she looked even worse than yesterday. She was pale, even her otherwise full red lips were just a slight glint of rose. But her sleep didn’t seem to be peaceful, she was wincing from time to time or moaning slightly.
Carefully Derek sat down on her bed and stroked her hair. “Baby girl?” he softly said. “Penelope? Wake up!”
She made a sound of complaint before she started to move and her eyes fluttered open. At first she gave him a puzzled look and then a small smile: “Hey, gorgeous.” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“I just came over to see how you’re doing.” he replied truthfully. “We’ve missed you in the briefing and I decided it would be better if I checked on you.”
“Just because I called in sick?” she mumbled a little baffled. “You could have shown up here after work.”
“That’s true.” he nodded and took a deep breath. “But… well, Emily said you seemed pretty… down yesterday. So I thought that you maybe needed something.”
“You talked about me?” she frowned.
“We’re all worried about you, doll face.” he explained. “This is not normal.”
Slowly she raised into a sitting position: “What do you mean?”
“All this.” he said pointing at her. “You’ve been repeatedly ill for almost half a year now and still no one seems to know what’s wrong with you. And now Emily said you were almost depressed yesterday. That’s not like you.”
“I know.” she nodded and looked down.
Derek could see her lower lip starting to tremble. At first he’d thought that her eyes had been puffy because he’d just woken her up. But it seemed she had cried a lot lately. “Hey.” he whispered as he pulled her into a tight embrace. “It’s okay, sweetness.”
“No, it’s not.” she sniffled. “This is not like me. I’m not even sure why I’m feeling this way it’s just that… I feel like crying all the time. And I don’t know why I’m feeling so ill. I was fine yesterday but this morning I simply couldn’t get up.”
He pulled back a little to look at her. “Your stomach again?” he carefully asked.
She nodded. “And the headache. And besides Emily was right, I feel… depressed. Something’s wrong with me, Derek.”
“I don’t think there’s something wrong with YOU.” He mumbled and then said: “Have you seen a doctor lately?”
“Three days ago.” she affirmed. “They even made a gastroscopy and a full blood work. But they didn’t really find anything. Just that there’s something wrong with my kidneys. But Dr. Arnold said it wasn’t that bad and couldn’t have caused the sickness.”
“Cup cake, you should really consider seeing a specialist.” Derek advised. “Reid recommended someone. Maybe you should go and see her, just to be sure.”
“What kind of specialist?” she wanted to know.
Derek hesitated for a moment before he explained: “A specialist for infectious diseases.”
“I don’t think that’ll help.” she sighed. “They already tested me for every disease they could think of but the tests all came back negative.”
“She also worked as a toxicologist.” Derek said before he could think about his words.
“You think I was accidentally poisoned?” her eyes widened obviously in shock.
“Or on purpose.” he firmly added.
“What?” she almost shrieked. “You think that… Kevin poisoned me?”
Before he was able to answer Penelope pushed him away. “No, Derek! I know that you don’t like him but he wouldn’t do that to me, he simply wouldn’t!”
“But you said he wanted you to quit your job.” he reminded her. “And now you’re too sick to go to work at all.”
“No!” she almost shouted. “You don’t know him but I do! He wouldn’t do that. He loves me.”
“Okay” Derek defensively raised his hands and gave her a warm smile, “I believe you. But still you should see the specialist. Maybe she can find out what’s wrong with you.”
“I’ll think about it.” she mumbled.
Damn, he had known that she would react like that! “Penelope, baby girl, I’m just here to try and help you.” he tried to calm her down. “I didn’t mean to accuse Kevin of anything. I mean, it could as well be something in your new furniture or even in the apartment itself.”
“But you’d like it best if it was him.” she added bitterly.
“No, because I don’t want anyone to hurt you.” he locked eyes with her to make her aware that he was serious. “I’m just trying to protect you. I know that maybe… certainly I’m overreacting. But after everything I know and have already seen in this job I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“He wouldn’t do this to me.” she repeated. “He loves me.”
“I know he does.” Derek assured. “And I’m glad that he’s here to take care of you.”
“You’re lying.” Penelope whispered.
Of course, he was. He was far from happy that Lynch was with her the whole day long. But what could he say? I want to kick this guy’s ass because I think he’s trying to make you stay at home by poisoning you? Yeah, that sounded like the most adequate thing to say.
“Okay, I admit I don’t like him.” Derek sighed. Now THAT was an understatement. “But just because I can’t stop being worried about you.”
“You don’t need to be.” she assured. “I’m fine. WE are fine. Kevin’s taking good care of me. He would never do me any harm.”
“I hope so.” Derek mumbled.
“Why can’t you just believe that he’s a good guy?” Penelope whispered.
“I’ll try.” Derek smiled. “But in the meantime I’d rather not leave you alone with him.”
“Penelope needs some rest now.” he heard the annoying voice coming from the door. When he turned he saw Kevin Lynch frowning at him and impatiently tapping his right foot.
“I think you should leave.” she quietly said. Derek was her best friend and Kevin was her boyfriend. She didn’t want to lose either of them but if they couldn’t at least try and get along with each other she certainly would have to make a decision she simply couldn’t make.
“Sure.” he mumbled. It was obviously time for him to leave now. “Get some rest.” he smiled and leaned in to kiss her forehead ignoring the grumble that came from the door “ secretly even enjoying it.. “We need you at work, you know that.”
Penelope nodded and Derek saw new tears welling up in her eyes. But as much as he wanted to hold her he was rather sure she wouldn’t let him. Not with Lynch standing in the doorway. So he left.
Outside the door Derek collected the few hairs from his jacket, put them in a plastic bag and then fished his cell phone out of his pocket to call Dr. Velasquez.
“Could you talk to her?” the woman answered the phone.
“Yeah, after I convinced Lynch to cooperate with us.” Derek sighed. “Thank goodness that guy’s a wimp.”
“What did you find out?” she wanted to know.
“She said she’d seen her doctor three days ago and they did a blood work but couldn’t find anything.” he informed her. “Just that something was wrong with her kidneys.”
He got behind the steering wheel and ran his hand over his face. “She looked even worse than yesterday. And she’d noticed that something’s wrong. But she refused to believe that it could be Kevin’s fault.”
“You told her about your suspicion?” the frown was even audible in Dr. Velazquez’s voice.
“No” Derek sighed again, “well, yes, I had to when I asked her to go with me to see you and she refused. I said that she could also have been poisoned and you could find out. She just said that Lynch was taking good care of her and that he wouldn’t do this to her. As much as I want to believe that…”
“Everything’s militating against him?” Dr. Velasquez let out a soft sigh. “Agent Morgan, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet. This sickness could have been caused by pretty much anything. But the fact that he didn’t want to let you talk to her worries me. It looks a little like he’s trying to separate her from you.”
“Yeah, fat chance of that!” Derek snarled. “I’m not going to let that happen.”
He hung up and drove back to the Bureau. Once Dr. Velasquez had found out what was wrong with his baby girl she could hopefully treat her and Penelope would get back to her normal self and most important back to work, to the team, where she belonged.
And if Lynch had caused any of this he would regret the day he was born, that much was for sure.
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ize678
11/20/23 09:43 am
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ize678
11/20/23 09:43 am
Thanks for A number of other enlightening weblog. <a </a>
ize678
11/20/23 09:40 am
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Nam
11/11/23 07:39 pm
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11/11/23 07:39 pm
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Pari
04/13/23 01:11 am
LilP7 you can find the link to create a series under the member account page, when you log in.
LilP7
12/10/22 07:18 am
Took the plunge and wrote a lil story. Thx to Pari and all other FF writers for inspiring me to put my idea on paper (well digitally at least)
LilP7
12/10/22 06:56 am
Took the plunge and wrote a lil story. Thx to Pari and all other FF writers for inspiring me to put my idea on paper (well digitally at least)
LilP7
11/29/22 11:54 am
As I mentioned b4, I am Garvez all the eay. Though I am definetly enjoying yr MorGar (or is that Morcia?) Ones too. Reading them again and leaving some reviews to show appreciation 4 yr hard work
Pari
11/29/22 08:31 am
@LilP7 Thank you for joining and I hope you enjoy the stories :)
11/20/23 09:43 am
Thanks for A number of other enlightening weblog. <a </a>
ize678
11/20/23 09:43 am
Thanks for A number of other enlightening weblog. <a </a>
ize678
11/20/23 09:40 am
web sot online Thanks for A number http://ize678.com/
Nam
11/11/23 07:39 pm
Only aspire to mention types written content is as extraordinary. This clarity together with your put up is excellent and that I could think you’re a guru for this problem. Substantial-excellent in
Nam
11/11/23 07:39 pm
Only aspire to mention types written content is as extraordinary. This clarity together with your put up is excellent and that I could think you’re a guru for this problem. Substantial-excellent in
Pari
04/13/23 01:11 am
LilP7 you can find the link to create a series under the member account page, when you log in.
LilP7
12/10/22 07:18 am
Took the plunge and wrote a lil story. Thx to Pari and all other FF writers for inspiring me to put my idea on paper (well digitally at least)
LilP7
12/10/22 06:56 am
Took the plunge and wrote a lil story. Thx to Pari and all other FF writers for inspiring me to put my idea on paper (well digitally at least)
LilP7
11/29/22 11:54 am
As I mentioned b4, I am Garvez all the eay. Though I am definetly enjoying yr MorGar (or is that Morcia?) Ones too. Reading them again and leaving some reviews to show appreciation 4 yr hard work
Pari
11/29/22 08:31 am
@LilP7 Thank you for joining and I hope you enjoy the stories :)
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