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"He was right, wasn't he?" Penelope asks, specifically avoiding looking at Luke as she gathers her things, later that night as soon as they're alone in her office. He had insisted on making sure she got home safe, because he always insists on making sure she gets home safe but even more so tonight. Elias Voit had touched her, he had taunted them both and that was all it had taken for him to get her to say yes. And she asks because it’s been playing over and over in her head for an entire day, what Elias had said. What he’d implied. What Luke’s face had told her in the jet. They’re not the same, it’s true. But when had they gotten to a point where they have a same ? When had she started to miss his constant uplifting presence instead of the hurt she finds on his features when she catches him looking at her? Because she does. She misses it. She misses him. She kind of hates that she misses him when he’s standing two feet away.
"What?"
"Voit. He was right, wasn’t he? It drives you crazy, the Tyler thing."
“No. No, of course not, he was just trying to fuck with us.” He shakes his head, but she hears the lie anyway. She’s stuffing her tablet into her purse, hands shaking. She had never meant to do this. She had never wanted him to be so angry or disappointed in her, or to be hurt. She’d hurt him. She’d done that. Penelope stops what she’s doing, balling her shaky hands into fists and she dares to look at him, back straight like she's preparing for war.
“I’m sorry.”
“Garcia, you don’t have to -”
“No, I do.” She says, one very pretty heeled foot taking a step forward and stopping just as quickly when he takes a small, instinctual step back. Oh . She’d done that. “I’m sorry because - I was being super selfish about my relationship with Tyler. With Emily, yeah but with you too. I didn’t know, I thought we’d - after the date -”
“You really didn’t know?” He asks and there’s that hurt in his eyes when he does. He shoves his hands into his pockets. Bad sign. Bad sign. Danger, Will Robinson. He only does that when he’s uncomfortable. She doesn’t want him to be uncomfortable. She wants him - she wants him happy. She wants him to realize that they wouldn’t have worked out because … because she hadn’t been ready for him. ( Is she ready for him now? Now that she knows that whatever she had with Tyler would never be good for her? ) She would’ve pushed him away four years ago. She would’ve ruined him, like she’s ruining him now. Couldn’t he see that she had tried to protect him from that? From her? That she’d been with Tyler because she’d known, even as bad of an idea as it was, that he would never touch her heart like Luke would have? Like he already has. How can she tell him that now?
This is not going the way she’d wanted. She just wants him back. She wants the Luke that had cajoled her into helping the team again, and promised that they could do anything together. Me and you, he’d said. She wants me and you, again. She wants - she guess it doesn’t matter what she wants. Getting what she wants hasn’t helped either of them one bit in the last year, has it?
“I guess … I guess, some part of me did.” She takes her step back and leans on her desk. Somehow the admission is worse than anything else she could’ve said but he deserves to know, she thinks. Because he’d almost gotten blown up again . Because if she doesn’t make him understand and something happens… “I just - I thought that I was protecting you, Luke.”
“Protecting me from what? Actually, you know what? We don’t have to do this tonight.” He takes her purse from her chair, ever the gentleman, even when she can tell he’s upset with her. “Or ever.” He murmurs, running a hand through his short hair as he makes his way to the door. She misses his curls. She has no right to miss his curls.
“Luke-”
“Listen, I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re fine, Garcia. It’s fine .” He doesn’t turn around and in turn doesn’t see the tears in her eyes. Small blessings, she thinks as she blinks them away. He’s not ready. She can wait. She’ll get him to understand even if it kills her - and it might.
“Fine.” She pushes past him, taking her purse from his grasp and she avoids his eyes the entire elevator ride down to the garage. She avoids looking at him in his truck, wrapped up in the way it smells like him on the way home. She avoids looking at him as he walks her to her door and when she’s about to go in, murmur goodnight and lock him out he stops her with a gentle hand on hers. She turns around slowly, her keys hanging from her fingers.
“I’m sorry I was short with you. Earlier. Voit did get under my skin.” He shakes his head, looking down at his shoes, his hand still on hers before he takes it back, shoving it in his pocket. She misses the contact almost immediately. “I should’ve fought for you.”
“What?”
“I shouldn’t have let you push me away. Sure, the date was clunky and awkward but I would take it over every date I’ve been on since…because none of them were you. None of them made me feel the way you do and I get it, if you don’t feel the same way.”
“Luke-”
“And, yes, the Tyler thing drives me crazy. It drives me crazy, Penelope. Not because it’s not me…but because you make every excuse for him. When he doesn’t even know which way is up right now. When he pushes you to do things you don’t want to, that goes against everything you stand for. And yes, because he doesn’t know you, not like I know you. I see you, who you are and I’ve loved you for every part of you. Even when you’re pushing me away. Even when you’re seeing someone else. Even when you’re so frustrating I would rather it be anyone else.” There’s a rushing in her ears, tears springing to her eyes. She could do without wishing it were anyone else but he loved her. He’d loved her. She watches him for a second, catching her breath and the look in his eyes -
“You love me.” She breathes, awed because - she hadn’t known. She hadn’t fathomed that he had felt that way, the way she could if she wasn’t so damn scared. So damn sure that he would need protecting from her because she couldn’t feel the way he felt. But she could. She can. She does feel that way. It kills her that she’s put them both through this.
“I just said-”
“You said loved . But that’s not right, is it? You love me.”
“Don’t make me say it,” he sighs, running a hand over his face and looking up at the ceiling before his gaze finds hers again, suddenly stony in a way she’s never seen directed at her. “Not when you’re still hung up on him. Not when it’s not me.” He looks so vulnerable underneath that hardened look that it breaks her heart, that he’s so raw. That she’s been so caught up in Tyler, in his mess, in her own and making Luke an unwilling participant in the process. She’s not sure she can say the words, not yet. She feels them, though. She feels the weight of them on her chest. Revels in them in ways she has never allowed herself before.
“What if it is you?” She asks, heart beating quickly against her chest and she takes a step toward him, grateful when he stays rooted. “What if - what if he never made me feel the way that you do? Loved and protected and terrified ? Because he’s great but he’s lost and I was more than happy to get lost with him because - it was easier. I liked it easier. Easier is…easy. It’s great sometimes and it is very bad but I knew you’d never be easy. I want difficult as long as it's you - I want me and you.”
“Garcia, it's not that simple.” He sighs again, but he stays there even as she takes another step toward him, until they’re so close she has to look up at him even in her heels.
“We’re not simple.” She says earnestly. “We’ve never been simple! You said you should’ve fought for me but it’s me, I’m supposed to be fighting for you. Let me fight for you.”
“You don’t have to-”
“Please?” She whispers and she thinks can see the moment he lets his guard down in his eyes, big hands closing around her arms as he dips his head to press a kiss to her cheek. She closes her eyes against the feel of his lips on her cheek and swears to herself in that moment that she won’t let him down again. Won’t ever make him force those walls back up.
“I have to go.” He says, quietly, taking the keys from her hand and opening her door for her.
“You don’t want to come in? We could talk some more and I make a mean cocoa, you know that.”
“Penelope, there’s nothing I would love more than to come in. I just don’t think it's a good idea tonight.”
“Because I can’t say it yet.”
“Because I’m not sure I believe you.” He says and the blow hits her like a punch to the gut. It must show on her face, because he’s quick to follow up. “I want to. You have no idea how bad I want to but I need time too. Can I pick you up tomorrow and we’ll ride in together?”
“Of course. I’d love that.” She says, hope blossoming in her chest against her will. He wants to believe her. She will prove herself to him.
“Great.” He presses a kiss to her temple, backing up and waiting until she finally moves inside her apartment to close the door. And then he waits until she sets her alarm. She can hear him leave after it’s armed.
She doesn’t sleep that night.