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"I wanted you to be the one
Tasted your love and now it's done
And you led me on
And I followed you
You're my drug of choice
What could I do"
Penelope caught up with Luke during their lunchbreak while everyone else had left to eat out. "I wanted to say thank you for asking the other day how I am feeling now. I wouldn’t have expected you to care after all the ways I included you in all my drama." She sighed with some regret.
"Don’t worry, you can always come to me and talk about whatever you want." He clarified with a sincere smile while he poured himself a coffee after having handed her a tea already.
"That is a pretty big offer since you know how messed up my life can get." she chuckled trying to add some humor and sipped on her tea.
"We all have issues, Penelope. Not just you." He tried to reason.
"Yes, but I was never the one that you told about your troubled private life. And I never underlined I would be the one you could come to and tell about your sorrows." She looked up at him wondering if he understood the underlining question. She was wondering if he even wanted to get so honest with her and show him being vulnerable.
He took a deep breath like he wanted to say something that was lying heavily on his heart for years but then he smiled and shook his head. "There is nothing really going on in my private life. Roxy and Lou are good girls and that is that, I guess."
She seemed unsure to push him and hesitated a little before she said "But there is something your heart has to want."
He felt like he had been hit by a freight train when she purposely shot back his words from the other day to him. His smile slowly melted away in his usual stoic demeanor. "Yeah, I guess." He barely breathed out the response and went more quiet and quiet with every word to a point where it got unclear if he said something else too.
Penelope felt suddenly bad for bringing it up. "I didn’t mean to upset you. I just... you can come to me with whatever you want to talk about." She tried to sound as supportive and reassuring as possible.
He looked at her with pained eyes and shook his head slowly "I don’t think this would be a good idea."
"Why?" Escaped her lips quicker then she could shut herself up, because it was better not to push and ask for anything right now.
He locked his eyes with hers with such an intensity that she felt like the world around them had stopped existing. "Because it is about you." He finally said, surprising himself that he spoke up and didn’t keep quiet as usual.
She shivered a little and said with a small voice "I know I haven’t been the best friend lately..."
"Friend?" He blurt out with more anger then he intended then shook his head like he just wanted her to drop the subject before she said more.
"You can’t?..." she was looking puzzled at him and continued after a short pause "...You can’t still be sitting on that table waiting for me?" In her eyes, more and more worries crept in "Do you?"
Neither of them said something or even blinked for a minute. It was one of those moments that could make enemies to friends or friends to lovers or let end a yearlong fought war between two nations.
"I do." He finally confirmed.
Penelope took one small step away from him. "I hoped you would be over it. I really want to be your friend you mean so much to me..."
"...but not that?!" He challenges her to confirm.
"No…, not that." She sighted heavy feeling so guilty for her feelings that she can’t explain to herself or even him. "I don’t know why, but my heart wants you just as a friend."
Her honesty hurt him more than any bullet he ever caught in all his service, cutting deeper than any knife he was too slow to avoid. The words travelling through his head louder than any gunshot ever shot and his body started to shake a little more than after any adrenalin shot he ever experienced. He pressed his eyes together willing away any tears that threatened to appear in this moment.
"You can’t just be my friend?" She asked with watery eyes looking at him in defeat.
"No, I can’t." He looked at her one last time. Picking himself up from the deepest abyss he had ever fallen in and tried to force a smile but it wouldn’t reach his lips.
"Good bye, Penelope." With these words he made a beeline to Emily’s office to resign and walk away from the BAU for good.
He finally accepted the defeat that somethings, no matter how much you want them, no matter how long you wait and how much you do for it, won’t just make it happen.
She couldn’t be blamed for not feeling the same, but he had to leave before he would fall so deep that he would never be able to get up from ever again.
He prided himself of always getting the target, the fugitive, the unsub. Fulfilling his duty and getting the job done, no matter what it took from him. That the person would never slip away, but this time he had to admit, unfortunately, he found the one that got away and her name was and would forever be:
Penelope.
"But now that it's over and I'm sober
This hurt that I feel is so real
Don't you get closer
I get colder the longer you hold me near"