Chapter Text
Sometimes she just hated her life.
Why did she have to find a way to track down Damien?
And why did they have to go and try to catch him?
And why of all available agents had Luke to be the one to arrest him?
And why did he not see the knife Damien had still hidden and rammed full force in Lukes’s chest on a last attempt to free himself?
Penelope knew it was unfair to blame Luke, since he was usually very cautious and did not get harmed often, at least not that bad, that he had to be rushed in the ER.
He normally brings the unsub into custody with no scratch or bullet whole on his body, but this time things had to go sideways with the strongest member of gold star all bets were off.
When Penelope and Tara got the call from JJ, they felt so powerless and shocked since they stayed in Quantico and were nowhere near where the team executed the take down and Luke had to be rushed to the nearest hospital. That meant hurrying to see and support his fight for his life was off the table. They could just stand back and wait for a positive update from Lukes’s teammate who was, thanks to him, unharmed. Then even though that Damien could trick Luke with the knife, he could not prevent him from closing the hand cuffs before falling bleeding to the ground.
Penelope stood by Taras’s desk where she was when they both listened to the frightening call and started to remember all the friendly banter she lately had with Luke again, and how she enjoyed the fact that they got back to their old routine of constant playful back and forth. Completely caught in her memories, she didn’t notice when Tara got up from her chair and went over to Lukes’s desk and got something from the drawer.
"Penelope?" After she got no reaction Tara got closer to Garcia, laid her hand on her shoulder and tried again "Penelope, listen."
She finally snapped out of her thoughts and looked up to her colleague "Tara?"
"Remember how you asked me how I deal with Rebecca being around? Well, it is easier now since it seems she might be willing to give me another chance." Disclosed her friend out of the blue like the phone call never happened.
"Wait, what? Why are you telling me that now?" Penelope didn’t understand the jump from Luke being mortally wounded, to Rebecca giving Tara another shot. So, she blinked confused and slightly angry at the older woman.
Tara realized she started that subject wrong but blamed her own shocked state for that and tried new "What I wanted to say was: she couldn’t stand the fact that I got nearly blown up by gold star back then in the park with Luke and Voit. She worried that she would never see me again, and you... you have a similar look on your face now, like she when she begged me to stay with her the night after."
Slowly Penelope connected the dots and found some similarities but still seemed rather puzzled by the connection.
"What you don’t know. Luke told me, if something would ever happen to him and he could not come back to see you again, there was a letter written in his desk drawer." With that, she lifts an innocent white envelope towards Penelope "He wrote it for you, and I know he is fighting for his life, and I wasn’t to do it now, but something tells me you should know about it before it is too late. So, I hope this is a huge mistake that I tell you this now because he hopefully comes back to yell at me about it, but you seem like you need to read it."
Penelope slowly took the envelope out of Taras hands with her mouth open but no words in response.
"Take it from someone who nearly lost her soulmate once. At some point, it is too late to go back, and you should decide what that means to you. I don’t know what is written in the letter, but I have a feeling and I am too exhausted of seeing you two to have so much to say to each other and never really do. Please, just consider reading it. If you don’t want to, I will put it back unopened, and we pretend I never said a word." Tara looked questioning at her wondering how she would decide.
"I.. my lair.. I forgot a..." stammered Penelope and with the unfinished sentence hanging between them she walked away without handing back the envelope to Tara.
"Good choice, Girl. Good choice." Tara whispered hopeful and praying that Luke would pull through so he could tear her a new one for giving the envelope to her before he died as he instructed her.
~~~
Penelope sat down slowly in her chair and stared at the envelope in her hand.
Why had Tara to tell her about that? Did she fear he would still die? Or did she hope he would pull through, but why should she read the letter then? Is it not invading his privacy?
Tara clearly knew something, and she also was aware that Penelope would never be able to keep the envelope closed. The curiosity was nearly killing her already, even though she felt it would be wrong to read it with him fighting for his life.
She turned the innocent object in her hands, contemplating if she should go to Tara to hand it back or open it finally, when her eyes caught something else in a corner on her desk. A small pink note, long forgotten which she wrote when she thought she would leave the FBI for good, and which was meant for who else would follow in her footsteps. She didn’t plan it would be herself opening it later and reading it after finding it again. But she didn’t forget what it said:
Follow your heart!
She felt that is what she had to do now too. Still, she felt a little guilty while she slowly opened the envelope, fixating on her own name written in Lukes’s handwriting on the outside.
After a last in vain hesitation if she should really read it or not, she slowly started to wander over the first sentences with her curious eyes:
Dear Penelope,
when you read this, well then, I'm not around anymore to annoy you.
So that's a good thing, right? You are finally freed from my annoying presence.
Penelope chuckled over his banter, that even in writing, she could picture clearly how he would say that to her face with a hint of teasing that always swung with.
Now all jokes aside, I guess you would still miss me, or am I wrong?
I just thought, I’d write you a few lines because well honestly? You were the only one I really wanted to say something too, or where I felt like I have something left to say and I would regret if you did not know eventually.
She inhaled deep continuing reading his meant to be last words to her.
So, what I am meaning to say is:
thank you!
For all the time we shared and the trust and friendship you gave me and all the light and color you brought into my boring life.
I know we had our difficulties, especially after that one dinner date, but I'm so glad we found our way back to each other as friends.
And our relationship became even closer and stronger than before.
Still in my heart, I will always love you and I want you to know that I never stopped believing you would be my person, but I know you didn’t feel the same way and I accepted that.
I wasn't going to push my feelings on to you no matter what you wanted, but I also didn’t want to lose you from my life entirely, so I tried to be the best friend possible.
Now I am Sorry I can’t sit your cats anymore and I hope you have the most pleasant life and that you find someone who can make you happy or annoys you at least as much as I did.
Oh, and one more thing. Since I wouldn’t trust anyone else with them... So, if it's not too much to ask for: I would love it if you could take care of Roxy and Lou for me.
At least find them a nice new home. It would mean a lot to me.
Now, I am Sorry for leaving you like that..
Yours always, Luke
She didn’t realize when the tears had started pouring down her face while she couldn’t stop reading the letter to the end but now the two thick streams were hard to miss cascading hard and unstoppable down onto her dress.
After what felt like a semi-truck had just drove over her five times, she put the paper down on her desk with shaking hands crying and hiccupping uncontrolled.
She never thought he would still love her. She thought that ship sailed back then.
Why did he not tell her this in person? Even though she wondered how she would have had reacted.
Would she have pushed him away again?
Or would she finally admit that back then at the dinner table she was just too scared for such a big change in her life, that she rather chickened out then admitted that he was her soulmate all along and she was hoping for a life together.
Her own insecurities and fears for anything seeming to be too good to be true, to not work out, had made her push away the one man that never gave up on her, no matter what she did to him.
Now the fear of losing him completely to a painful death brought her back in the here and now as suddenly her door swung open, and Tara shouted rushing in: "HE IS STABLE! They say he is stable, and he will pull trough."
Penelope smiled through her teary face and said in a small voice while getting up from her chair "Good, I need to talk to him about things not said."