#31dof2018

She never meant to fall in love with him. That first day she’d met him, all those years ago, peeking out from behind a file folder to look at him without seeing the horrors JJ had projected onto the screen, she never thought she’d even like him, a feeling that compounded itself weeks later when he yelled at her in her apartment after the shooting.

 He was friends with Gideon, she’d reasoned, and Gideon thought she was stupid, so why should Rossi be any different? Truth be told, he intimidated her, scared her almost, so she put up her walls like she always did, calling him sir and doing her best to stay out of his way.

 But somewhere along the line, things changed. Suddenly she was smiling around him in a way she only smiled around her friends. Time passed so quickly these days, and before she knew it she was at his house (his mansion, he insisted) making spaghetti and coming home with him for scotch and Tony Bennet.

 And then he started calling her kitten, and what was left of Penelope’s years-old resolution to keep her distance from David Rossi melted away. Somehow, she found herself falling in love with him in spite of herself, in spite of his bluntness and his temper and his past and his age, in spite of all the things that part of her thought should keep them apart.

“How do you think they’re going to take it?” She murmured, turning in the passenger seat to look at him and fussing with her hair to keep her hands busy.

 “Relax, Penelope,” David said softly. He took her hands in his, smoothing his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “They’re going to be happy for us.” He was sure they would be. They were like family, after all. He smirked a little at that – after all, that would make this relationship incestuous! – but he was sure that the rest of the team would support his burgeoning romance with their favorite technical analyst.

 “But what if they’re not?” Penelope cried, her hands shaking violently in her lover’s grasp.

 Rossi sighed. Garcia had had worries about their relationship from the start, and while he wasn’t surprised that her concerns were blooming at this particular moment, that wasn’t to say that he wasn’t disappointed. “Does it matter what they think, Penelope?” He finally asked.

 “Yes!” she exclaimed, yanking her hands from his and gesticulating wildly. “These are my friends, my family! I need them to support my relationship!”

 “What, like they were all so over the moon about Kevin Lynch?” He snapped. He wanted to regret it, and part of him did, but he also knew it needed to be said. They needed to address this, and there was no time like the present, he supposed.

 Penelope stopped short at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “W-what?” she stammered.

 Rossi looked her sharply in the eye. “You and I both know that a certain Derek Morgan was none too thrilled when he found out you were dating Kevin. But you didn’t care what the team thought then. Why should I be any different?” His chest ached at the thought that he wasn’t good enough to deserve her fully, that she was only willing to love him conditionally.

 She opened and closed her mouth a few times, searching for words and looking rather like a fish out of water.

 “Why am I not good enough, Penelope? Why do you need someone else to tell you it’s okay to be with me?” One tear chased another down David’s face, and Penelope’s breath caught in her throat. She’d never seen him cry before. What’s worse, he was crying needlessly; that wasn’t how she felt at all. She had to fix this.

 “That’s not it,” she whispered, swallowing hard and looking down. She knew she had to tell him the truth, but she was so scared of ruining what they had with too many feelings too fast.  “I never loved Kevin like I love you.”

 Rossi was quiet in the driver’s seat, watching her intently but not prodding, just waiting for Penelope to say whatever she was going to say.

 “When – when I realized Kevin was going to ask me to marry him, I panicked,” she continued. “I loved Kevin, but I knew he wasn’t my forever. You – David, you feel like my forever.” Her voice trailed off as she finished, and they were both crying now. Penelope’s shoulders began to shake as silence filled the SUV. Rossi was quiet, and she’d learned quickly that when Rossi was quiet, he was usually not happy at all.

 “Please get out of the car,” he said quietly, and Penelope would’ve sworn she could actually feel her heart break. It was worse than she thought. He was so mad at her, he couldn’t even be in the same car with her. He was going to abandon her here in the parking lot of O’Keefe’s, crying hysterically and with no idea how to explain it to the team, who were sure to be arriving any minute.

 Sure enough, just as Garcia pushed shut the passenger side door, three more cars carrying the rest of the team pulled in a few spaces down. Her eyes were glued to the pavement, trying to curb her tears before anyone noticed. She heard the team approaching, talking and laughing in the exhausted but happy high that always followed a happy ending to a case. After a moment, though, they all fell silent, and she cursed herself for being so emotional. Rossi was pouting in the car, and here she was crying all alone, and she didn’t know what to tell them, and –

 “Penelope.” David called her name gently, more gently than she’d ever heard it before, and as she looked up she realized very suddenly that she had read the situation very, very wrong. The team wasn’t staring at her. They were staring at Rossi, who was not pouting in the SUV after all – he was kneeling in front of her, an open ring box in his hand and an earnest look on his face.

Penelope Garcia had told herself she was done with love.

Everything with Shane had gone to hell (although it had landed her in Virginia, so she supposed it had worked out well enough in the end), Kevin had disappeared when she told him she wasn't ready for marriage, things with Sam had never been quite what she'd wanted them to be, and when Derek and Savannah had moved in together she'd been forced to accept that romance between her and Morgan was just never meant to be, no matter how much she'd wanted to believe to the contrary.

She'd harbored other crushes over the years, of course – her infatuation with one Emily Prentiss had been particularly notable, and Penelope still missed her dearly now that she was across the pond at Interpol – but none of her serious relationships had worked out, and none of her silly crushes had ever gone anywhere. Garcia knew she wasn't getting any younger – she was almost forty, for Pete's sake! – so she'd finally decided that she would just have to learn to be happy with Sergio as the only special someone in her life.

The most painful part of accepting her singleness was letting go of the idea of ever being a mother. She'd wanted children for as long as she could remember, but she had decided that perhaps it just wasn't in the cards for her. She knew she could adopt, of course, and she'd it wasn't that she'd ever been particularly attached to the idea of having specifically biological children, but she just didn't want to raise kids on her own. Whenever she'd imagined herself as a parent, it had been with a teammate, a partner to support her and laugh with her and fall into bed with her at the end of the night.

She'd given up on love, though, so all that was out of the question.

Or so she'd thought.

The moment she saw Dr. Tara Lewis, Garcia was awestruck. This woman was gorgeous, and with a "doctor" in front of her name and an FBI shield on her hip she had to be smart, and – Penelope remembered rather sheepishly the way she'd reacted when she first heard about Alex Blake – from all that she could tell, Lewis was nice.

"She's magnificent," Garcia whispered at Hotch, eyes sparkling as she shook hands with this beautiful, wonderful woman she'd barely met, then scurried off to her office while Agent Hotchner and Dr. Lewis talked about her potential future with the BAU.

It was a while later, as she was shutting down her systems and packing up her things for the night, that Garcia heard an unfamiliar knock on her office door. She could usually tell who was there by the way they knocked – Reid was a few quick rasps, Derek tapped out a funny rhythm, Rossi practically banged her door down – but whomever was at the door knocked gently in a way that seemed uncharacteristic of any of her usual visitors.

She smoothed down her skirt as she headed towards the door (what if it's the director? One has to make a good, wrinkle-free impression), then turned the knob to greet her mystery guest.

"Oh!" she exclaimed softly as she swung the door open and found herself gazing into deep brown eyes that seemed far too familiar to belong to someone she'd only just met. "Dr. Lewis!"

The agent smiled softly. "Please, call me Tara," she said. Between her beautiful eyes, her smooth voice, and her sweet perfume, Penelope was practically floating, and if she'd had her wits more about her she would've chastised herself for being so infatuated. After all, she'd barely met this woman! As it was, though, Garcia just stood there, grinning like an idiot, so Dr. Lewis – Tara – kept talking.

"Looks like you and I are going to be teammates," she said with a smile that had Garcia weak at the knees.

"Teammates," Penelope repeated dumbly after a moment. "So, you, uh, you got the job?"

"Um, yeah," Tara's grin faltered a bit. Garcia had seemed to like her when they'd met in the bullpen earlier, but something about her behavior now seemed off. "Is that okay with you?"

"Is that okay with me," Penelope murmured, still fixated on those perfect eyes. "Is that o – " She jolted mid-sentence, blinked quite a few times in the span of about a second, and blushed deep red with the realization that she'd been echoing what Tara said like an absolute moron. "Yes! I mean, is a gorgeous, brilliant woman joining my team okay with me?" She scoffed, then blushed again when she realized Tara was smirking.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Tara nodded a little and adjusted her bag on her shoulder, "Because I actually asked Agent Hotchner where your office was so I could come down here and ask you to dinner."

Penelope's jaw dropped open. She stammered, and her mind raced. This couldn't be happening. Was this happening? "You wanted to- me?" She was nearly whispering, afraid that she was misunderstanding or had misheard somehow, because this was literally the definition of too good to be true.

"Yeah," Lewis either didn't notice Garcia's shock or chose to ignore it, but either way Penelope was grateful. The last thing she wanted right now was to talk about how ridiculous she was acting. "There's a really good Thai place down the street if you're interested."

Oh, I'm interested, Penelope thought lasciviously, her stomach quivering with excitement, but she couldn't come up with anything she actually felt confident saying, so she just continued to stand there with her mouth gaping open. Fantastic, Penelope. Real attractive.

"I'm sorry," Tara finally said with a sigh. "I didn't mean to overstep. I guess I misunderstood earlier. You're just really pretty, and I had to at least give it a shot. Forget I asked." She turned to head back down the hall, and Garcia absolutely panicked. No!

She’d tried to avoid him forever.

 Okay, that may not be entirely accurate, but she certainly hadn’t spent any more time with him than strictly necessary after all that had happened.

 His kids were still her godsons, though, and she didn’t want to neglect her godmotherly duties, and eventually, seeing Henry and Michael was going to unavoidably mean seeing Will again, which absolutely terrified her.

 She wasn’t proud to admit it, but she’d even actively avoided him at the funeral. She’d squeezed into that one black dress that she only wore when Something Horrible had happened, and she’d searched and searched until she finally found her plainest pair of dark-rimmed glasses, and she’d done everything in her power to avoid making eye contact with the man whose wife she’d killed.

 It wasn’t your fault, they all kept telling her, No one could have known he’d be there, over and over and over again, almost like a prayer, as if they held out foolish hope that someday she’d believe them.

 She would’ve rather faced Will, though, than Mrs. Jareau. She’d stumbled over her words and her feet as she tried in vain to find something appropriate to say to this poor woman, lost in a world without either of her daughters and clinging to Henry and Michael’s hands as if they, too, would slip away the moment she let go.

 Appropriate had never been Penelope’s strong suit, and it was by the sheer grace of God that Reid had come up beside her, placed a reassuring hand on the small of her back, and taken over comforting Sandy.

 With Spencer doing all the talking, she had found herself free to refocus all of her energies on effectively avoiding William Lamontagne.

 Eventually, though, the visitation and the funeral and the director-mandated time off had passed and she, along with the rest of the BAU, had found herself thrown violently back into the real world, trying to find a new normal in a world without Jennifer Jareau. It was not an easy task.

 She’d done everything she could think of to spend time with Henry and Michael without facing Will. The boys were easier; when they looked her in the eyes and told her they loved her, she believed them. She didn’t find herself wondering if they’d ever forgive her for killing their mother the way she wondered if she’d ever forgive herself. There was no hidden resentment behind their tragically familiar blue eyes. They were just happy to see her, to be out of a house heavy with mourning – a mourning Penelope just knew was fueled by shallowly-hidden resentment towards her. It was all her fault.

 But she’d been dropping them off at home when day, walking them to the door like she always did to make sure they got inside okay, when Will had poked his stubbly, bag-eyed face around the corner and invited her in for coffee. She’d known she had to say yes; for all she could tell, it was the first time he’d reached out to another adult human being in months.

 Having coffee with Will had not been quite what she’d expected. She’d been bracing herself in the time it took to walk from the front door to the kitchen table to face Will’s pain and anger – but mostly, he’d just been lonely. Lonely, and very, very tired.

 Taking care of two boys alone was a lot of work, he’d explained with a soft laugh. Truth be told, he’d done a lot more laughing during their coffee together than she’d been counting on, and, although she’d never paid it much attention before, he had a nice laugh. Gentle, but not timid, like he knew who he was and what he believed in. Not many men like that anymore, she’d mused.

 They’d sat there having coffee for much longer than either had intended, talking about nothing and everything until the sun was gone from the sky and their coffee was cold in their cups. Penelope had truthfully been ashamed at herself for enjoying herself so much – it had been less than a year since this man lost his wife, one of her closest friends – and so she had been completely caught off-guard when he’d asked to cook her dinner the next week.

 “Please,” he’d drawled, “The boys are stayin’ with Spencer for the night and you’d honestly be doing me a favor. They don’t like gumbo – blasphemy, I know,” he laughed, “And I’ve been dyin’ to make some, but the recipe is too much for just me.”

 She’d hesitated for a long moment – this was JJ’s husband! – but when she saw the look in his eyes she’d known she couldn’t turn him down. The man was desperate for a friend, someone to talk to in front of plates of gumbo or cups of long-cold coffee, and so she’d told herself it was the least she could do for JJ now to keep her husband from feeling so alone.

 Before she knew it, though, one dinner had turned into four, and dinners had turned into Saturday lunches with the boys, and by the time the second year passed he wasn’t just JJ’s husband anymore. She’d never known Will well before Jennifer passed, she was embarrassed to admit; he’d come into JJ’s life so suddenly and always been a little distant. Now, though, in spite of everything that had happened, he’d become one of her closest friends. The time they spent together was precious to her, and she found herself lying awake at night praying JJ would forgive her for the way she was beginning to think about Will.

 She’d been sure, though, absolutely certain, that she’d never have to worry about the reality of her most shameful daydreams. Jennifer was the love of his life, she’d told herself time and time again, and though she’d never known such a love herself, she’d been positive that he’d never move on, least of all with someone so bold, so quirky, so different from his wife.

 So the night that she found herself coming up for air from a kiss she’d felt all the way to her bones, staring into the eyes of a man with whom she’d not so long ago been terrified to have a cup of coffee, she was shell-shocked. He wasn’t what she’d planned on, and she was sure she was never what he expected, yet here they were, their faces inches apart on the front steps of her apartment building.

 “Will,” she whispered, and he tucked a blonde curl behind her ear as their hot breaths mingled in the cold November air. “Are you sure about this? I mean, JJ-“

 “JJ’s gone,” he reminded her, and she was struck by his quiet matter-of-factness. “She wouldn’t want either of us to be alone, Pen.”

“You’re – you’re dating who?” JJ’s eyes widened and gave a breathy laugh of surprise and confusion as she looked across her desk at a particularly squirmy Penelope Garcia.

“Supervisory Special Agent Jordan Todd,” Garcia repeated. She was sitting on the very edge of her chair, and her legs seemed to be jiggling up and down completely of their own accord.

“I don’t even know what to say,” JJ admitted through an awkward laugh. “I didn’t even know she liked women. I didn’t know you liked women.” And yeah, although she wasn’t going to admit it, it was a little weird to think that while she was out on maternity leave, loving every second she got to spend with Henry but still counting down the days until she could be back with her team, one of her closest friends had been getting it on with her replacement.

“Neither did I,” Penelope confessed, “But I like Jordan. She makes me happy. Okay. Have a good day.” With that, she stood quickly and turned on her heel, headed for the door.

“Wait!” JJ called after her. “I thought you wanted to, I don’t know, talk about this.” She felt a little silly when she realized she wasn’t actually sure what she had thought Garcia wanted; she just knew she hadn’t expected her to leave so quickly after such a declaration.

Garcia smoothed down the hem of her purple cardigan. “Do you feel like we need to talk about it?” She asked, her voice almost a challenge, as if she’d been waiting for JJ to raise questions about her new relationship and was ready for a fight.

JJ felt her defenses rising. She’d never felt so on edge around Penelope, and she wanted very much to ease the tension between them. She stood up slowly and walked to where Penelope stood, her brown eyes tracking the liaison closely from behind her pink and red two-tone frames.

“Are you happy, Penelope?” JJ asked, looking expectantly into the analyst’s eyes.

“Yes,” Garcia didn’t hesitate for a moment, and JJ smiled.

“Then I guess there’s nothing to talk about,” JJ decided. “If you’re happy, I’m happy for you. You certainly don’t need my approval.” She paused, then added, “And you don’t need Derek’s, either.”

“Jennifer Jareau, I love you,” Penelope gushed. Her shoulders visibly relaxed before she wrapped JJ in a hug. “He was all pissy when he found out, like I’d been leading him on or something by not telling him I was into girls – which I absolutely could not have been, since I didn’t even know.”

“Oh, screw him,” JJ said with a dramatic eye roll, and they both giggled at her choice of words. “Derek’s just being a big baby because you’re actually paying attention to someone other than him.”

“Thanks, JJ,” Penelope reached for the door, her heart feeling about a thousand times lighter after admitting her new relationship and, ironically, she supposed, being reassured that she didn’t need anyone’s approval or reassurance.

“See you, Garcia.”

“So, JJ was back at work today?” Jordan asked later that night as she twirled spaghetti onto her fork.

“Yup,” Garcia answered cheerfully, tearing off a piece of garlic bread and dipping it in her tomato sauce.

“Well?” Jordan practically hissed, her eyes wide and her shoulders nearly hunched as she leaned across the table towards her girlfriend. “How’d it, you know, go?”

Penelope swallowed. “How did what go?” She was deliberately playing dumb, pretending she didn’t know that Jordan was talking about the fact that she’d promised to tell JJ about the pair’s new relationship as soon as she came back to work. She knew it was silly, bordering on petty even, but after her conversation with JJ early today, she wanted to make Jordan admit that she was craving external validation of their relationship.

“Oh, come on, Penelope,” Jordan deadpanned. “Did you tell JJ we’re together? What did she say?”

“Yes, I told her,” Penelope said dispassionately.

“Garcia!” Jordan snapped. “What. Did. She. Say?”

Penelope sighed quite dramatically. “Why does it matter, my love?” She asked, and Jordan smiled in spite of herself at the endearment. That was one of the things that had drawn her towards Penelope initially; her sweet nicknames had a way of putting everyone at ease whether they wanted to be or not.  That and her smoking hot bod, Jordan thought with a smirk.

“Jordan Todd, get your mind out of the gutter right this instant and answer my question!” Penelope exclaimed when she realized her girlfriend’s gaze was completely lost in her bust.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jordan muttered, blushing and shaking her head. “What was the question again?” She asked sheepishly, sipping on her water a little bit to avoid eye contact.

“I was asking why it matters what JJ had to say,” Penelope reminded her, tilting her fork back and forth gently for emphasis.

“Well, she’s your friend, Penelope,” Jordan said, blinking slowly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I mean, I remember how upset you were when Morgan – “

“Screw Morgan,” Penelope interrupted. Jordan jolted in surprise, and she elaborated. “I mean, to hell with what Morgan thinks. I’m with you because I care about you and because you make me happy, and if Derek has a problem with that then maybe I should have a problem with him.”

Jordan stared, blinking slowly, across the table at her girlfriend. “Wow,” she finally said, a small smile sneaking across her face. “You’re really serious about this thing, huh?”

Penelope balked. “Is this a trick question?” She didn’t want to be too forward, presuming too much about where this new relationship between them was headed, but she didn’t want to give the impression that she wasn’t serious about Jordan, because she was. God, she was.

Jordan’s smile faltered a little. “No, Penelope, it isn’t a trick,” she said softly. She swallowed, licked her lips, then said, “I’m serious about us, and it sounds to me like you are too, but if you’re not, I’d like to know now before we take this any further.”

By the time Jordan finished her sentence, Penelope was up and around the table, pulling her girlfriend out of her seat and into a breathtaking kiss. “I’m serious,” she whispered. “No matter what anyone says, I’m here.”

It was hard to believe, considering the situation in which Penelope Garcia now found herself, that it had been only a few hours since that awkward encounter in front of the convention center, since she'd stood next to Reid with that big red hat on her head and that cringe-worthy forced grin on her face avoiding eye contact with the ex-boyfriend who'd had the audacity to bring a date to the con they'd planned to attend together.

"CSU Technician Sharp! How are you?" She'd offered uncomfortably (and a bit too loudly, she'd realized), her eyes wide as her mind and heart raced. Garcia smirked slightly at the memory. Her heart was racing now, too, but she was anything but uncomfortable.

"Kevin couldn't hold a candle to you," Gina said breathlessly, raking her long fingers through the thick blonde curls of the woman beside her on the couch.

"Damn straight," Garcia hissed through a grin. She bit her swollen bottom lip and pulled the brunette even closer.

When she'd seen them together, to say she was surprised would have been an understatement. Sure, she'd brought Spencer, but that was different – she and Reid were teammates and longtime friends. Kevin and Gina, though, they had never travelled in quite the same circles, and Kevin had mentioned more than once during his relationship with Penelope how much he liked Gina. It had hurt her feelings, really, listening to her boyfriend talk about how smart Agent Sharp was and how funny Agent Sharp's jokes were and how nice Agent Sharp always looked. She couldn't exactly argue with him – Gina was smart and funny and beautiful – but while she had kept her silly crush on Agent Sharp under wraps out of curtesy for Kevin, Lynch had never bothered to return the favor.

"He talked about you, you know," Gina told Penelope in between heated kisses. "The entire time we were at the convention. Honestly, he wouldn't shut up about you." The teasing lilt in her smooth voice and the sparkle in those soft brown eyes made Garcia laugh softly, her body shaking in the taller woman's embrace.

"He talked about you, too," She smirked, and Gina's eyes went wide with surprise. "The whole time we were dating," Garcia continued, "He would mention every now and then how nice you'd looked that day, or how good you were at your job, or some funny thing he'd heard you say." Penelope's eyes shot away for a moment as she added softly, "I think he always wished I was a little more like you – or a lot more like you, maybe."

"Fuck that," Gina snapped, and Garcia's eyes shot back up in surprise. Sharp pushed Penelope back by her shoulders, towering over her for a moment before swiftly capturing her lips in a breathtaking kiss. "Lynch never deserved you," she said fiercely, then grinned and added, "He never deserved either of us."

"God, this must be, like, his fantasy," Penelope observed with a giggle as she stared up at Gina through foggy lenses. "The two of us, making out like teenagers on my couch? I think he'd absolutely perish at the very thought."

"Well, to be fair – " Gina paused for a moment to steal another kiss as one hand tangled itself in Penelope's hair and the other dropped to her shapely hip – "We are pretty hot."

"Can I cut in?" Gina asked as she approached Kevin and Penelope on the makeshift dance floor in David Rossi's backyard. She didn't know Agent Jareau or Detective LaMontagne too well, but she loved a surprise wedding as much as the next gal, and she was glad to have been invited – especially since Penelope was here.

"Oh, Garcia and I were just talking," Kevin explained quickly, and Gina had to stifle a laugh. His tone and body language oozed defensiveness, like he was under the impression that Gina was jealous he was dancing with Garcia. Well, she realized with a smirk, he's not technically wrong. Still, though, Gina and Kevin had been dancing just a few minutes ago, before his dance with Penelope, and it was almost ridiculous that he seemed to think she was just desperate for another turn, as if his two left feet and complete lack of any rhythm whatsoever were just a hoot and a half on the dance floor.

"Oh, I meant Penelope," she explained with a confident smile. Garcia and Lynch both stared dumbly, so she smoothed her hands over her skirt and elaborated, "I want to dance with Penelope."

Kevin continued to stand stock-still, his mouth gaping open, so Penelope stepped easily around him as she took Gina's hand, smiled gently and said, "I'd be positively delighted, Agent Sharp."

Garcia's well-manicured hands reached around Gina's shoulders for the zipper on the back of her dress, and Sharp pulled back for a moment. "Penelope," she whispered, "Are you sure you want this?"

Garcia's face fell. Of course, Gina didn't really want her. She blinked quickly a few times, but a tear escaped anyway, and she felt her cheeks burning beet-red as she stammered wordlessly, trying to find something to say that could save what was left of her dignity.

"Hey, hey, hey," Gina soothed, wiping Penelope's cheek with pad of her thumb, "No tears, okay? I just want to make sure you're ready for this. I mean, you and Kevin haven't been broken up very long," she pointed out, stroking the blonde's face gently.

The sincere concern in Gina's eyes nearly melted Penelope, and tears of embarrassment became tears of relief as she realized Gina really did just want to make sure she was okay. A relaxed smile broke over her face as she said, "Don't worry about that." She shook her head gently. "Kevin was good to me for a while, but neither of our hearts were ever fully there, and that relationship hasn't been worth missing for longer than you know." She paused, smirked seductively at the beautiful woman in her arms and added, "And it's certainly not worth missing out on this."

Gina laughed. "Penelope Garcia, you are absolutely one of a kind."