Work Text
Elle was the first. Elle hadn’t been on the team for that long, and Penelope wouldn’t say they were particularly close, but she mourned the loss of one of the few women on the team nonetheless.
Then it’s Gideon. It seemed sudden, but she respects him and truly hopes he finds peace. He was a man of few words, to her at least. They weren’t close, but Gideon wasn’t close with anyone on the team. He was scarily good at keeping his work life and personal life separate. So it was an adjustment when he left the team, but more of a professional adjustment than a personal one.
JJ is the first one that truly hurts, not just because they are friends but because it isn’t JJ’s choice. Penelope always wants what is best for her friends, even if it is counter to what Penelope would prefer. She could at least comfort herself with the fact that her friend was doing what was best for them. But now JJ is being taken away against her will. Hotch tried to stop it, but there’s only so far his influence can reach.
Her departure hurt more than the others. JJ is the one who invited her to that baseball game with Reid where they formed their dynamic trio. When JJ leaves, Penelope allows herself one weekend of wallowing before she picks herself up off her couch and goes into work with a smile pasted on her face, puffy eyes hidden under layers of makeup. And to make matters worse, JJ becomes hard to keep in contact with after she leaves. What else is she supposed to think other than JJ only thought of her as a work friend? Sure, Penelope is the godmother of JJ’s son, but what else is she supposed to think? Later, she finds out about the true nature of JJ’s reassignment and the pieces fall into place. But some wounds stay scabbed over and never quite heal.
Then, just when she stops faking her smile at work, Emily dies. Penelope falls apart. What else is she supposed to do? Her heart feels battered and bruised and she doesn’t know how she is supposed to keep doing this. Her worst fear since she joined the team has always been losing one of her friends. She’s come close a few times; Hotch with Foyett, Morgan in that explosion in New York, Reid when he gets kidnapped, etc. She felt powerless the entire time Emily was out there fighting an evil from her past alone. She called every single one of her old phone numbers and left a voicemail on each one. But it wasn’t enough. Who knows if Emily even heard any of them.
Penelope takes in Sergio and it helps her feel connected to her lost friend and gives her a reason to look forward to going home. The loss leaves a permanent scar in her already aching heart.
When Emily comes back, Penelope is over the moon, but that scar never goes away. She is more aware than ever that her friends can be taken from her at any moment, and the more she cares about them, the more it’s going to hurt when they do.
There are so many goodbyes after that, it can be hard to keep track. There’s Kate, Jordan, Alex, Ashley. Poor Stephen. She won’t ever get the image of him dead in that car out of her nightmares.
And each time someone leaves, Penelope can feel her heart close itself off a little bit more. It hurts too damn much to keep caring for these people who can leave or be taken from her at the drop of a hat. She stops seeing new team members as new friends, but instead as future heartbreak. She’s friendly with them, of course, but she keeps them all at arm's length.
She carefully constructs sturdy walls around her heart and only a select few are allowed entrance. Those select few being the team members she already invited in and she could no more cut them out than cut her actual heart out of her chest.
But even with them, she makes a concerted effort to put at least a little distance between them. She only goes out with them for a drink every third time she’s asked. She stops planning dinner parties at her apartment. Because by now, she knows it’s only a matter of time before people leave her and she’s left to nurse her emotional wounds alone on her couch or in her lair. Reid has had one step out the door for a while with his mom being sick. Rossi already retired once; it’s not a stretch to know he will leave the BAU before Penelope does, whether by choice or not. Hotch almost left after Haley died, and his guilt over splitting his time between the BAU and Jack has only increased since then. JJ and Emily have already been taken from the team; what’s to keep them from leaving again?
The one person she never thought would leave her is Derek. Which is why she feels completely blindsided when he does exactly that. She thought they would be in this together forever. But then he’s leaving and there’s no way she can be upset with him, not when she knows why. He is doing what he needs to do to protect his family. He grew up without his father, and he doesn’t want his son to do the same. She respects his decision and would never try to talk him out of it.
But understanding why he’s leaving does nothing to heal the deep chasm torn through her heart his absence has caused. He’s just gone. Moved to Chicago with barely a backward glance. Her Chocolate Thunder. Best friend. Confidante. Soulmate.
Morgan one time had asked her that no matter what happens, she never stops talking to him. She was his god-given solace. So she calls him religiously, once a week. Plus, she texts him frequently throughout the week. But his responses to her texts start to take longer and longer to arrive in her messages. The phone calls get shorter and shorter. Until one day, Penelope realizes she hasn’t had a text from him in 6 weeks and their last call was well over two months ago and only lasted 5 minutes. That’s when something inside her snaps.
She doesn’t go out with the team anymore. She doesn’t share anything personal with them unless they explicitly ask her, and even then she keeps it short and sweet. Anyone who notices the differences in her write it off as a delayed grieving period over Morgan leaving. Then Hotch leaves and Emily comes back and it’s all so crazy that by the time anyone notices that they haven’t heard any of Penelope’s trademark quips in months, it’s become the norm.
Penelope reinforced those walls around her heart, and this time she wasn’t letting anyone in. Ever. It wasn’t worth the risk of being hurt again.
Then one day, Luke Alvez joins her in the elevator…
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Suddenly, there’s a new person on their team. Penelope isn’t quite sure when that happened. One day she looked up and there was Agent Alvez sitting at the round table with the rest of the team. Something flickers way down deep, buried under the mountains of rubble and reinforced walls, that in another life he would’ve sparked her interest. But she wasn’t lying that day in the elevator when she said she keeps a low profile at work. She hasn’t been ‘high profile’ for years. Or even ‘medium profile’ since Derek left.
So it really isn’t that difficult to act as if this new agent is no one significant. He’s not even here permanently. He is here because he’s from the Fugitive Task Force to help track down the escaped serial killers. There is a built in end date. There’s no need to know him, or even learn his name. She declares him ‘Newbie’ just to further cement that division, and that’s that.
Especially because Mr. Fugitive Task Force refuses to take a hint and keeps trying to talk to her; become friends with her. So she invents a fake boyfriend in an effort to put even more distance between them, but he never seems to become upset with her? He just takes it all in stride, always leaving his interactions with her with a slight smile teasing at his lips.
She wants to huff and rant about how irritating he is before she reminds herself that she doesn’t care. There is a reason she built these walls and she will not let this part-time fugitive hunter undo all the work she’s put in over the years. He’ll be on his way soon, then everything can go back to normal.
Except he…stays?
Alvez,
Newbie,
becomes an official member of the BAU team. He even starts taking the necessary courses to be a profiler. Well, Penelope can double down like nobody’s business. She vows to herself to exclusively refer to Newbie by that name, or names similar to it. His actual name will not ever pass her lips. She will avoid talking to him, and when she has to it will be factual and to the point. No personal chit-chat. Shouldn’t be too hard; she’s been doing that with everyone else already for so long it has become second nature.
And if there’s a quiet voice telling her that she only has to create all these rules when it comes to one particular agent and no one else, she ignores it. It doesn’t mean anything. It
can’t
mean anything. All she needs to do is think of the damage done to her heart when past friends left, the ocean of tears she cried when Derek left, to strengthen her resolve.
There aren’t many upsides to being the new guy. You don’t know the people, you’re not in on any of the jokes, and you feel like you may never fit it. However, one of the very few upsides is that you see things everyone else might not notice; things everyone else is so used to seeing that their eyes don’t even register anymore.
One example being that every time the team members joke around with each other, Penelope’s mouth opens, just slightly, as if she wants to join in. But she always stops herself before any words come out. He notices how Penelope‘s fingers twitch at her sides anytime one of the team members returns from a case sporting a new bandage, as if she wants to comfort them, but is holding herself back.
Or how sometimes, just sometimes, when she thinks no one‘s looking, he’ll see a look in her eyes that he has seen in his mirror on his worst days. A look of pain and loneliness and hopelessness. She may hide it behind bright colors and big smiles, but he knows there is a very real and very large pain lurking just below the surface. And he also knows that no one else seems to notice; or maybe they do notice and they’re just so used to it that they don’t question it anymore. Either way, he makes it his mission to show her someone does notice.
It starts small. Every day, Luke asks Penelope ‘how’s it going?’. A simple question people ask each other in offices every single day across the globe. Plus, it doesn’t require Penelope to volunteer any information she isn’t willing to share. It’s a question where a non-answer of “fine” or “good” is perfectly acceptable, even expected. And those are the only answers he gets for the first couple of months. There are only a few moments of doubt where Luke questions if maybe this is just who Penelope is; maybe she just isn’t that social. But he has heard tales of the infamous HR presentation centered around the banter of Penelope and Morgan. Add in the way he can see her hold herself back around the team? Penelope is in some serious pain that she seems unwilling to share with them.
Penelope wishes Newbie would stop trying to befriend her. He may think he’s being inconspicuous, but she sees it. He greets her every single day. At first, she doesn’t really think much of it. He’s new to the team; he’s probably just being friendly. He’ll stop when she doesn’t reciprocate and he gets closer to the rest of the team.
And he does get closer with the rest of the team. He and Tara have formed a bantery, sibling-esque relationship. He is one of the few people who seem genuinely interested in Spencer’s long winded and only semi-relevant info dumps. Not to mention the connection he has with Matt in their shared military backgrounds.
But even then, he doesn’t stop trying to interact with Penelope. Frickin’
Newbie
. With every easy smile he sends her way, and his daily ‘how’s it going?’, Penelope can feel this intrepid explorer slowly scaling the walls she so meticulously built.
She tries to throw him off, get him to descend back to where he belongs, but each attempt only seems to encourage him more. She snaps at him, lobs sarcastic remarks at him across the table, avoids him whenever possible, anything to keep that dangerous smile and sparkling eyes away from her. But her undertaking seems to have backfired, and that is highlighted by JJ one day in Penelope’s lair.
“You seem happier these days. I’m really glad to see some of the not-so-serious Penelope popping out.”
Penelope feels her stomach drop to her toes. “W-what makes you say that?”
“You know, the verbal sparring with Alvez. I’ve missed your special brand of sarcasm and flirting.”
“I do not flirt with Newbie!” Penelope sputters, indignant. JJ only smiles, knowingly.
“I don’t! It goes against my mission statement.” Penelope tries again.
“Ok, Penelope. If you say so. Whether you’re flirting or teasing, or whatever, I’m just glad to see some of your spark coming back.” JJ pats her on the shoulder and heads back to her desk, leaving Penelope rendered speechless.
A few weeks later, Luke brings her a figurine for her desk. She doesn’t have nearly as many trinkets on her desk as she used to, but a select few of her favorites still adorn a small section of her desk. She almost rejects the gift, no matter the small part of her that thinks it’s the sweetest thing anyone has done for her in a very long time, but she gives in at the hopeful glint in his eyes as he holds up the little dog. She places it with the other trinkets on her desk, convincing herself it doesn’t mean anything. But on her way home that night, she can’t stop replaying how excited Luke was when she accepted the gift.
She keeps teasing him and only refers to him as Newbie, but there’s a lightness to it that wasn’t there before. Penelope can feel herself smiling more, the abandoned muscles weak with disuse. Luke brings her coffee when she’s deep-diving into various servers and sites for a case, or tea when it’s nearing the end of the day.
Penelope still doesn’t go out with the team after cases; JJ and Rossi stopped nagging her about it years ago. Until one evening, Luke asks her. The team just wrapped up a case and came back to the office to drop off paperwork before heading out for a drink. Penelope is heading out when the team spills out of the elevator. She waves goodnight to them, and enters the elevator they just disembarked from, intent on going home. But Luke holds out his arm to keep the doors from closing.
“We were all going to get a drink together. You should come with us. We would never have wrapped this case up so quickly without you.”
Penelope is ready to graciously decline, steeling herself in the presence of Luke’s hopeful glance. But what makes the air stutter in her lungs is the semi-defeated look in JJ’s eyes, who had turned towards Penelope when she heard Luke’s invitation. Penelope hated disappointing her friends. It’s part of why she tries to be home before the team returns from a case. It’s easier that way. So instead of a refusal, she hears herself say, “Sure.”
JJ’s eyes light up brighter than Penelope has seen them in a very long time, and Luke is beaming so wide she could probably count each of his teeth.
She keeps her walls up, but she is increasingly aware that Luke continues to climb her walls, and he is alarmingly close to the summit.
Until one day, Luke is injured on a case and has to be taken to the hospital to get checked out. He’s fine, just a sprained wrist and some stitches to his hand. But Penelope feels her heart beating wildly in her chest and her stomach squeezes with anxiety. She finally has to admit she cares for him, at least to herself. But not out loud. Not ever. (Or, at least not yet.)
Penelope finds a balance with Alvez. She’s able to mostly keep him at a distance. He is still ‘Newbie’ most of the time and she continues verbally sparring with him. But she also accepts his offerings of tea and coffee and will go out with the team every once in a while.
It’s scary, taking a step back into who she used to be. The whole reason she took a step back in the first place, (or many steps back, but that’s beside the point) was to protect herself because anyone on her team could leave at any moment, which hasn’t changed. The various members of the team still periodically return home in slings and casts, with bandages and stitches. Emily left and then came back. Linda Barnes separates them for a short while. She can’t risk her heart the way she did in the past.
The last time she felt this way about someone on her team was with Morgan, even if it was only ever completely platonic with them. He was her Chocolate Thunder and she was Baby Girl. Their souls were so entwined she never, ever thought he would leave her. So even if she was maybe, possibly, ever so slightly developing feelings for a certain Newbie agent, how is she ever supposed to trust someone ever again not to leave her. Because if Derek could leave her in the dust, anyone can.
Right?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She’s become proficient at this balance now. She goes out with the team every once in a while, she’s smiling at work again, and having superficial conversations with the newer agents, Tara and Matt. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. She still has Newbie at arm's length. She’s not diving in with eyes wide shut anymore. She can do this.
But that arm’s length is rapidly getting shorter until suddenly she’s calling him ‘Alvez’ more than ‘Newbie’ and she’s smiling more than not these days. Her phone greetings, while not up to par with what they were with Morgan, get more colorful.
She helps Luke bring his friend Phil a puppy. They work together when Luke is demoted and has to stay in DC for their cases. They plan a baby shower together for Matt and Kristy. She asks his help to quickly decorate the office for Rossi’s proposal to Krystall.
Penelope can feel herself falling, allowing Luke closer and closer, until one day he’s just ‘Luke’. And it terrifies her how comfortable she is with him. Everytime she tries to push him away, he stays. He might give her some extra space, but she knows it’s for her comfort rather than him being put off by her.
Why isn’t he put off by her?!
It all comes to a head one night when he comes to her lair, offering a ride home. Her beloved car, Esther, was in the shop so Penelope had taken an Uber that morning which Luke became aware of when he saw Penelope’s empty parking space and asked her about it. So of course, Prince Charming that he is, Luke offers her a ride home after work. Even though she had been extra snippy today, not to mention her apartment is in the complete opposite direction to his.
“Why are you so nice to me?!” Penelope explodes at him, perplexed that her attempts to push him away seem to be having the opposite effect and slightly desperate for him to just confirm her assumption and leave her. Let him finally get fed up with her and walk away. But he’s still here.
For his part, Luke is confused and slightly amused. He lets out a nervous chuckle. “What do you mean? Do you want me to be mean to you?”
“Yes! Be upset with me! Yell! I don’t bring you coffee or tea and I answer in monosyllables to most of your questions. I call you by a nickname that you protest against. Why don’t you walk away and never talk to me again?” It all spills out and she can’t stop it and she is terrified he’s going to leave but even more terrified he’s going to stay.
Luke is quiet for a moment. “Is that what you want?”
“What?” She hadn’t been expecting that.
“Is that what you want? For me to yell and walk away and stop talking to you?” She can see the light dying in his eyes and it feels like a stab to her heart. He looks so defeated. She looks down at her shoes. The pink heels that have been hidden at the back of her closet for years and she recently unearthed.
“No.” She whispers. She’s not sure if she wants him to have heard it. But he did.
“Then why would you ask me that? Why would you be upset that I’m
not
angry with you?” Luke asks, incredulously, desperate to understand.
“Because you should’ve left me by now! By now you should be tired of me and my antics and be long gone. But you’re still here! Why are you still here?!” Penelope can feel the tears gathering. Her voice cracks on the last word and the floodgates open. Tears fall down her cheeks, and she wipes them away furiously.
Luke’s face softens, understanding dawning on his features. He takes a cautious step forward and tentatively takes hold of one of Penelope’s hands. “Penelope-” His voice catches and he clears his throat. “Chica, I’m not going anywhere unless you specifically ask me to. Even then, I won’t want to, but I would do it if you truly wanted me to go. But I am here for you, always. I care for you, I love you. We can just be friends and colleagues if that’s what you are comfortable with, but no matter what, I will be right by your side for as long as you’ll have me. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Penelope has given up on wiping her tears as they are falling even faster now. Each word that he utters soothes a part of her battered heart. She wants to believe him. She wants to grab hold and never let go. But…
“I want that. I really do. But I’m scared.” Penelope sniffles.
“Why don’t we start slow. I can drive you home tonight and tomorrow I can pick you up and we can get breakfast? Low-key. No expectations. And we go from there?” Luke offers.
Penelope sniffles again, tears slowing. “Just breakfast?” At Luke’s nod, she smiles tentatively. “That sounds nice.”
And they do just that. Penelope gathers her things and Luke drives her home. Once she is safely inside, Luke drives himself home. He is back at her apartment the next morning, exactly on time. They eat breakfast at a nearby diner, trading easy conversation back and forth. When they are finished, Luke pays and brings Penelope back home. They continue in this same fashion every week, or as close as they can with the BAU’s schedule.
Each week, when Luke picks Penelope up and they eat breakfast and he brings her back home, she feels herself get a bit stronger. Less afraid. Luke never misses a week unless he is out of town for a case. He never tries to cancel or reschedule for any other reason. And when he does miss a week due to an out of town case, he is always at her doorstep the following morning, without fail.
Penelope knows that if she ever wants anything to go further with them, she will have to be the one to initiate it. He won’t ever try to push her into something she isn’t ready for. And he truly does seem like he would be happy with their current arrangement indefinitely if she’s never ready for anything more.
After over a year of their breakfasts, Penelope decides it’s time. No one has ever made her feel as special as Luke has made her feel in the last year. So that morning, Penelope does her makeup how she used to, with bold lipstick and colorful eye makeup. She grabs her purse and a tote bag and goes outside to meet Luke.
“Hey, you look great! What’s the occasion? And why are you outside? I would’ve come up and knocked.” Luke asks when he pulls up and finds Penelope waiting on the sidewalk.
Penelope climbs into Luke’s truck, but doesn’t buckle her seatbelt yet and starts fidgeting with the straps on her tote bag. “I was ready early so I thought I’d get some fresh air while I wait.”
“And what’s with the tote bag?” Luke asks, feeling like there’s more than she’s telling him. Especially since she’s been staring straight ahead since she got in the truck, avoiding eye contact. She only does that when she’s nervous.
“Well, I-uh. I was thinking we could go to the farmer’s market today instead? We could get food from one of the food trucks and then walk around for a bit? If you’re okay with that?”
“That sounds great!” Penelope looks up at his enthusiasm, a slow smile forming on her face.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. You’ll have to direct me there, though, because I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Oh, well then let’s go! Go up the street and take a right.” Penelope starts directing Luke as she scrambles to buckle her seatbelt. Luke grins at her enthusiasm and flicks his turn signal to follow her directions.
At the market, their first stop is the ring of food trucks where they debate the merits of each before finally choosing the giant crepes. Luke gets his with strawberries and chocolate sauce. Penelope gets hers with strawberries, banana, and nutella.
Final bites of their food eaten, Penelope grasps Luke’s hand and starts dragging him excitedly over to the rest of the market. Luke laughs, happy to see Penelope so enthusiastically excited. He quickly grabs their discarded napkins and throws them in a nearby garbage can.
The pair spend the rest of the morning wandering from vendor to vendor. Penelope seems particularly enamoured with one vendor selling handmade earrings, but she walks away without having bought a single pair. Luke makes a mental note to make sure they pass this tent again before they leave.
By the time they are ready to make their way back to Luke’s truck, both Penelope and Luke have bought some food items. Penelope mostly got fruit she can’t typically find in her local grocery store, and Luke found some organic eggs he plans to use for Roxy’s food.
Luke starts guiding them through the crowded street and stops them outside of the earring vendor. Penelope sees where Luke has stopped them and looks at him questioningly.
“I thought you might want to look again. I was surprised you didn’t get any earlier, especially that one pair over there with the stars and moons that you kept going back to. Did you want to look again?” Luke explains.
Penelope melts on the spot and she grins at him. She pulls on his hand, still entwined with hers, and quickly finds the earrings she had been admiring earlier. She brings them to the woman running the stand and buys them. She doesn’t even put them in her bag, she just puts them in her ears on the spot. She had missed the feeling of long, dangly earrings. Feeling their subtle weight brings her a joy she’s been missing for so long. Luke smiles at the beaming woman next to him. Her smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
Eventually, they make it back to Luke’s truck. “Thank you, Luke. I had a great time today.” Penelope grins at him. She hasn’t stopped smiling for most of the morning, but especially since she put the earrings in.
“Well thank you for the idea. I also had a great time.” Luke is finding that Penelope’s joy is contagious. He can feel his cheeks starting to ache from smiling, but he can’t stop. He drives them back to Penelope’s apartment. Penelope is quietly singing along to the radio, hand tapping her leg in time with the music. It takes everything in him not to take her hand and kiss it.
He pulls up to Penelope’s building, but she doesn’t get out right away. She turns to look at him, nerves creeping in just a bit at what she’s about to say. She’s been afraid for so long. That’s why they started their breakfasts in the first place. But she’s not afraid anymore. “Luke?” She asks.
“Penelope?” He looks at her, a question in his eyes.
“Can…Can I kiss you?”
Luke’s eyes widen, and he chokes on his words so instead he nods his head. At his endorsement, Penelope reaches for his face and brings her lips up to his, bright red painted lips meet plain pink lips and the world stops. Nothing else matters but each other. Penelope licks at Luke’s bottom lip and Luke easily allows her entrance, their tongues tangling together. Eventually, they need to breathe but they stay together, breathing the same air, chests heaving. A door slam down the road jolts them apart back to their own seats. They look at each other, smiling. Penelope looks at the time on the radio.
“It’s almost 1pm. Did you want to come in for lunch? I can cut up some of this fruit I got and whip up some sandwiches?” Penelope asks.
“I would like nothing more.” Luke answers, still grinning, Penelope’s lipstick smeared across his lips. Penelope notices and giggles before gesturing to his face.
“Um, you’ve got some..all over.”
Luke pulls down the mirror in the driver seat and laughs at what he sees. He grabs a napkin from the center console and does his best to look at least halfway decent, but the dry napkin is no match for the waxy lipstick.
“Come on, I have make up remover wipes inside. Plus, it’s just me and I don’t mind.” Penelope starts to gather her bags, and Luke gets out of the truck. He joins Penelope on the sidewalk, offering his arm. Penelope loops her arm through his and they begin to walk inside.
Penelope has never been happier.