He’d just dozed off when the phone rang, vibrating at his hip in addition to the shrill ringing. “Hello?”
“Is this Derek Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“Sir, we’ve got Penelope Garcia here and…”
Morgan pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the caller display. ‘Potomac Hospital’. His heart began to race, beating triple time.
“Sir?”
The phone went back to his ear immediately. “What’s wrong, is she okay, is everything okay?”
“Ms Garcia sustained a gunshot wound, sir. We’ve got her stabilized and we’re going to move her into surgery to remove the bullet momentarily. You’re listed on her emergency contact form, but is there a parent we can call?”
“No, Garcia’s not close to her parents.” He checked his watch quickly. They’d be touching down in half an hour. He could already feel the plane start to tilt. “I can be there in 40 minutes.”
“She’ll be in surgery, sir.”
“I don’t care. I’ll be there in 40 minutes.” He slapped the phone shut and ran a hand over his head. When he looked up he noticed the eyes of the team on him. “Garcia’s been shot.”
There was a few seconds of silence before the questions were fired at him. He put up a hand to stop the overwhelming words. “She’s going into surgery to remove the bullet and they’ve got her stabilized. Other than that, I’ve got nothing.”
It never ceased to amaze him how fast the team could swing into business mode, but they did it again to investigate as much as possible. Hotch was on the phone to the FBI, JJ to local news agencies and police stations and Emily back on the phone to the hospital. Reid sat quietly and Morgan could tell the young doctor, like himself, was trying to puzzle out exactly what had happened.
Hotch was the one to eventually put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine, she’s a fighter.”
________________________________________
3 Days Later…
Hotch had been understanding when Morgan had asked for leave and Morgan hadn’t left the hospital since they’d touched down in Quantico. Garcia was his primary concern, his only concern, until she woke up and bestowed upon him one of her brilliant smiles and snarky comments.
He felt guilty, horribly, terrible and gut wrenchingly responsible for what had happened to her. Their fight had been eating at him through the large majority of the case. He’d been stupid, blind, that much he knew. He was a profiler, trained to read body language, to understand the nuances of what people said or did and put together an understanding of them. And yet, he’d been blind to how open she was with him.
And now she was lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound. She’d lost a lot of blood when the EMTs had reached the scene and had already dropped off into a coma. And here she was still, not a single flutter of her eyes or a shift of her muscles. The only comfort Morgan took from the entire scenario was the beeping of the heart monitor by his head.
He knew the statistics. Garcia was less and less likely to wake up the longer she stayed out. He also knew there was no way the team would be the same without her smiling happy face, without her snarky comebacks and flirty barbs. He wouldn’t be the same without her.
Morgan had been too afraid to touch her throughout his three-day stay. She looked way too fragile, like she really would fade into nothing if he so much as brushed her hand. But he wanted to, oh how he’d wanted to over the last 72 hours.
Come on, Pen. You have to wake up. You just have to. I can’t lose you.
His mantra had been exactly the same. Three straight days of repeating the same thing to himself over and over again to try and convince himself that she was going to be okay, that he’d see her gorgeous and expressive brown eyes again soon.
Then the compulsion took hold and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and cradling her hand between both of his. His exhausted mind focused solely on the distinct differences between her incredibly pale skin and his own chocolate colour before he could even start to comprehend that he was talking.
“Pen, Baby Girl, you have to wake up for me. I can’t lose you, not like this, not without solving things between us, Princess.”
By the time he realized he was talking, the words were spilling out much faster than his brain-to-mouth synapse could catch.
“I’m sorry, Baby Girl, so, so sorry I didn’t see anything, that I didn’t check, that I couldn’t protect you. I should have known, I should have seen that I was stupid. I was sick of our dance too, Goddess, so sick of it. You are always the one that’s there for me after the tough cases, always the one that listens and lets me puzzle.”
Tears were pouring down his face, but nothing was making enough sense to him for him to really realize they were there. His body was exhausted, his mind was exhausted, and all he wanted was for Penelope Garcia to open her eyes.
“You are my rock, sweetheart, and I can’t, cannot, lose you now. Now when I’ve realized how stupid I’ve been to not just sweep you into my arms and carry you off into the sunset.
“I need you to open your eyes, Pen. Just open them, say something, let me know you’re going to be okay eventually. Please, Baby Girl. Please.”
Nothing came except the tears and Derek allowed his head to pitch forward for the first time and cried himself to sleep.
________________________________________
Penelope was groggy when she woke to the fluorescent lights of the hospital. It took her mind a good five minutes to process everything that had happened, to remember meeting the smoking hot man in the coffee shop, to remember her fight with Derek, to remember the awesome time she had on the date, and to remember the searing pain as the bullet tore through her flesh.
She flexed her fingers, surprised to find that while one hand worked perfectly fine, the other seemed incredibly stiff and weighed down. When she looked over, she found a sight to behold.
The Derek Morgan she knew was an energizer bunny, always moving, always active, always the first person to throw himself into whatever case they were doing and into the most dangerous situations he possibly could. Now, here, he was asleep on her hand, his wrapped tightly around hers.
Guilt racked her, as did a sort of twisted happiness. He looked like hell, like he’d been here the same amount of time she had. But she felt terrible. She hadn’t even thought of running a background check on the guy and Derek had told her to go with her gut.
She’d ignored her gut to spite him.
And it had put her in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound.
But he was here with her. Asleep to be sure, and she was in pain, yes, but he was here, and he’d stayed. Her hand lifted his, placing it on her stomach so the warmth relaxed some of the pain in her abdomen as her other hand carefully traced his long fingers.
Eventually, his breathing changed and his head came up slowly. He could feel the spider soft touch on his fingers and hope flared in his chest as he looked up at how focused and awake Penelope Garcia was on his hands.
He swallowed thickly apology written all over his face. “Good Morning, Princess.”
She met his eyes, her own shining with guilt, apologies and forgiveness. “Hey there Hot Stuff,” she answered softly, her voice raspy.
He reached for the cup, pitcher and straw, holding the cup out for her to take a drink. “You have no reason to be sorry,” he whispered, his free hand coming up to brush at her curls as he replaced the cup on the nearby table. “I had no right to pry into your life like that. And I’m sorry I was so stupid and blind.”
She shook her head slowly, aware that the drugs she was on were part of the reason her head was fuzzy. “I should have stuck to my gut, Derek. I should have looked him up, checked to make sure everything was clean.”
His smile was tight. “They got him, anyway. Emily came by earlier this morning.”
“How long have you been here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he contradicted. “I’m just really glad to see you awake Doll Face.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “How long have I been here?”
“Three days,” he answered softly. “I was on the plane when I got the call.”
“And you polished up your armour to come and rescue me again.”
He breathed out a miniscule sigh of relief at the tone of humour and teasing in her voice. “Pen…”
She squeezed his hand, a small smile tilting the corners of her mouth. “Don’t, Derek. We’re both sorry, we both made mistakes. We’ll both fix them.”
Her strong conviction gave him hope as he took in her face. After a moment, Morgan stood, carefully dislodging his hand from hers. “I’m going to go let the doctors know you’re awake.” He pressed a long kiss to her forehead before heading out.
20 minutes later, she was hopped up on painkillers and the doctors had pronounced her most likely capable of making a full recovery now that she was awake and talking. She had another week in the hospital to ensure that the gunshot healed appropriately, but her prognosis was good.
Garcia’s eyes were drooping, the drugs effectively putting her to sleep. Her hand was back in Derek’s and he simply watched her.
“Go to sleep Princess,” he urged, a hand reaching out to brush against her forehead and sift through her hair.
“It’s going to be a dream.”
He chuckled. “No way. I’m going to be here.”
She couldn’t fight the drugs anymore, but just as she was inches from falling off the precipice into dreamland, she felt him press another sweet kiss to her forehead.
“I love you, Pen.”
She fell asleep with a smile on her face, feeling safer than ever.
________________________________________