There was a lot of different things Garcia had pictured in her first day back, but a completely quiet office was not one of them. It felt good to be back in the swing of things, back to her office and her niche, but she expected piles upon piles of paperwork in her office, files that needed to be addressed, and maybe a hot co-worker around to remind her that normalcy wasn’t that far away.
However, that wasn’t what she got when she opened her office door. She was a little apprehensive to step in, to say the least. The entire place was covered in flowers. She stood outside the door for a few moments, just taking it all in before she even considered venturing in. The ringing of her phone forced her to navigate her way to her desk and the phone buried between a bouquet of carnations and a solitary sunflower.
“Garcia.”
“What, no cute quip hello?”
A smile blossomed over her face involuntarily as his voice floated over the line. “You try digging up the phone in the middle of a garden. Then tell me you have enough brain capacity to come up with a witty greeting.”
“I find it hard to believe that a genius like yourself really has problems exercising her wit,” came Morgan’s smooth reply. “And a goddess should be used to the tribute of mere mortals.”
She chuckled as she booted up the computers. “I could start my own florist through all of this. At least most of the bigger vases are on the floor, away from the fragile and sensitive equipment.”
“Even you are not clumsy enough to spill flowers, Baby Girl,” he placated. “And I saw the garden when I came by to pay my own tribute.”
Garcia’s mind locked onto that tidbit. “Your tribute? But you are not a mere mortal, are you?” She spun in her chair, the best way to get full view of the room. She figured Morgan’s welcome back gift would jump out at her. Nothing did. “Gorgeous, you know my live of surprises has decreased severely over the last three months,” she lectured.
“I promise it’s not a jump-out-and-scare-you kind of tribute, Doll Face. Now I have to run so take a look at the case and I’ll call you when we need your all-knowing self.”
That took her by surprise. They’d talked not five hours before and she could have sworn she woke him up. “Case?”
Morgan chuckled. “We’re in California.”
She groaned. She hadn’t even realized they were on a case. Her nightmare had spurred her to hit speed dial, period, end of discussion. “You didn’t tell me.”
“It’s just a case, Pen,” he said, confusion evident in his voice. “Is this about your phone call earlier?”
“I woke you up didn’t I?”
“You’ve done it before. And you’ve done it before when we’ve been off chasing down bad guys,” he pointed out in confusion.
“I know, I know, I just…”
“Hey, you’re still recovering. The nightmares get better. And I’m glad you call me, I really am. Lack of sleep is a small price to pay for your beauty sleep and sanity, Princess,” he reassured her, his voice strong. “Now, you look over that case and prepare yourself to work some magic.”
________________________________________
It was a couple hours later that her phone rang shrilly, long after she’d booted up her computers and taken a very thorough look over the file, pictures excluded of course. There were some things about her fellow human beings she really didn’t need to know.
“You’ve reached Penelope Garcia, technical goddess. Make a wish.”
“You ready to work your magic?” Morgan’s voice came for the second time that day.
“I was born ready, what do you need?”
“I need you to dig into the records of BlytheWorks Financial, see if you can find any disgruntled employees from the janitors to the officers.”
She had the records pulled up before he’d even finished the sentence her pulse picking up at the thrill of being back in the game. “Company’s got a lot of complaints here, Sugar, you looking for anything in particular?”
“Any that are specifically lodged against our vic, Joseph McMunagle.”
A few keystrokes later and the list was already being sent over the wires. “Twelve complaints in the last six months, they’re on their way over. And Morgan?”
“Mmhmm?”
“If you left me my proper tribute it’s been stolen or buried.”
He chuckled at her matter-of-fact tone. “Keep looking, Baby Girl. I’m sure you’ll find it.”
Then he was gone.
Garcia leaned back in her chair, allowing herself a moment to bask in being able to help out again. She’d missed this, missed being called whenever the team needed her, missed being able to look things up in the time it took them to finish a sentence. She played an important role in the team and she knew it just as well as they did.
Morgan hadn’t held back from her either in the sense that when they talked, he inevitably started ranting about whatever incompetent tech that they’d been assigned for their specific case. They were never good enough, never fast enough, never quick enough to match her wit, intellect and supreme genius. It was nice to know she’d been terribly missed.
Now, however, her mind was on a mission. To find whatever Morgan had left for her as her welcome back gift. And it was buried somewhere in the depths of this mess…
________________________________________
48 Hours Later
It had been forever since she’d upgraded her computers, and the layer of dust she’d had to clean off the keyboards when JJ called for information spoke to the number of people who had dared to step in her lair and touch her weapons of justice. It had given her time to clean some of the vases and arrangements out of her office. Still, there was nothing she could find that screamed ‘Derek Morgan’ at her, and she’d pretty much emptied the place.
A knock on her door startled her, but a grin blossomed over her face at the chocolate God leaning against the doorway as if he belonged there. “Hey there, Hot Stuff.”
“Hey yourself,” he responded, not moving from his perch in the doorway. “The team wants to take you out. Dinner, after our first case back together again.”
Her cheeks went red. She loved her team, from the bottom of her heart. The fact that they wanted to take her out to celebrate her return just made her feel that little bit more special.
“But they’ll all understand if you’d rather just go home and hit the hay. Hotch was a little surprised that you stayed with us the whole time.”
She grinned. “I slept, when you guys slept. Plus, it was nice to be back working.”
“You didn’t push yourself though, right? It is your first case back and with the way we were going in California…”
Without thinking twice she approached and patted his cheek with her hand. “I’m fine, sweetness, as close to 100 percent as I can be following cases like these.”
“And your side?”
“Honey, I’ve been sitting most of the day, I promise it’s fine. Minimal painkillers, and I may have tugged on it once when I was moving all of this stuff, but that’s it. You worry too much.” He sighed, and she knew she was about to get some sort of insight.
“I worry about you, Pen,” he responded, running a hand over his head. “But it certainly felt good to have you back.”
She grinned. “You were saying something about dinner?”
“If you’re up for it the team wants to take you out,” he repeated, his hand absently coming to rest on her hip, even as his other shoulder balanced his weight against the doorframe.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Garcia asked, grabbing her last vase. Then she stopped dead and slowly replaced said vase at her feet. There, inconspicuously sitting on her desk, was a small plant, insignificant in comparison the overtures that had graced her room not half an hour before. The plastic pot it was in was white, simple, unadorned as the flowers were.
Garcia didn’t keep plants in her sanctum for the logical reason of computer safety. Thus, the plant was new, different, out of place in the otherwise cluttered room. Beside them was another pot, this one with pens sticking out of it in the gardening foam used for fake arrangements. They ranged from bright light up pens to pens that were simply fun colours.
Immediately she spun to a grinning Derek Morgan, dropping her purse and just missing knocking over the other vase by centimetres as she launched herself at him. It had taken her three days, but she’d found his ‘Welcome Back’ gift.
“Whoa,” he exclaimed as he caught her, a little bit surprised at his enthusiasm. “Is this how you’ve been thanking all of your admirers?”
Garcia shook her head against his shoulder. “I’m not a huge bouquet kind of girl, just a small simple one works best and all of this was a little overwhelming when I stepped in this morning and it’s… it’s perfect.”
Morgan was grinning at how his smart, sassy tech goddess could go from business and teasing to gushing woman in thirty seconds flat. “It’s an African Violet so it’s care is pretty minimal,” he revealed. “And I figured some new pens were in order for such a spectacularly, adorably out there kind of girl.”
“New flowers, new pens… kind of sounds like we’re honouring a new person,” she said contemplatively.
Morgan snorted. “Okay, Baby Girl, no more spending time with the profilers. Tonight aside ‘cause I think Hotch is buying.”
Garcia’s eyes widened in surprise and glee. "I'm in! Let’s go, before our illustrious leader changes his mind.”
Morgan watched and grinned as she picked up the violet, placing it just behind and to the left of her centre screen, a place she could see it whenever she worked. The pens found a place of honour on the right side, sticking up like the odd bouquet they were. He was so glad to have her back, so glad to know that she was right down the hall from him again, not in bed, or holed up in the hospital.
He took comfort in the fact that things were returning to as close to normal as they could be after the fear of almost losing one of their own. Yet, Derek knew that there were things that were changing, things that were shifting. But since those things revolved around his relationship with Garcia “ he wasn’t going to make any sort of concrete move until he knew she was back for good “ he wasn’t going to complain.
Instead, he would bide his time, not keeping too close, but definitely not pushing her as far away as he had before. He’d made that mistake once and it had almost cost Penelope Garcia her life.
He wasn’t stupid enough to make the same mistake again.