Work Text:
The first days after are the hardest for Luke. He floats through the time, the hours ticking down. This minute without Roxy. The next, also without her. Each minute catapulting him further into the future, and further away from his life with her. Every minute afterwards increasing the percentage of his life without her in it.
Luke tries to focus on the case, and sometimes it works. It’s a distraction. Find the unsub. Save the victims. Roxy just sits in a corner of his mind, patiently waiting until he can return to her; return to grieving. Much the same way she used to sit and patiently wait for him to get a drink from his water bottle in the middle of a run. Roxy was always ready to keep going. She never seemed to need to rest like he did.
Until she got sick, anyway.
Luke sighs, trying to push the guilty thoughts away, to make room in his mind for anything else. He’s spent the better part of the last week beating himself up, and no matter how many ways the doctor told him there was nothing he could do, and no matter how many times Penelope insisted he was the best dog dad she’d ever known, he still felt the guilt. It coiled in his stomach, hot like acid, burning its way through intestine and viscera, until he felt like nothing was left inside of him but a big, empty void.
Penelope’s suddenly there, next to him as he sits on the bench. She slides next to him and rubs his back. The guilt void inside him recoils from her touch. Luke’s brain fires up with thoughts of I don’t deserve this sympathy, I don’t deserve it, save it for Roxy - until it bubbles up and spills out of him, the hot guilt turning into hot tears streaming down his face.
He feels Penelope slide her arms around him and he clings to her, desperate for an anchor. The moment he’d felt Roxy go still, it was as if he’d lost his mooring and drifted out to sea. And once he was out there, the ocean turned rough. It had been tossing him back and forth, lurching and churning, trying to capsize him and every day had been a struggle not to sink.
Penelope whispers things into his hair and he can’t make any of it out over his own crying, but it doesn’t matter. He latches onto her voice and pulls himself along it until his head finally breaks the surface and he feels like he can breathe again.
Eventually his sobs lessen and his breath evens. He stirs and sits up; Penelope loosens her grip but doesn’t let him go. She’s close to him, embracing him, and Luke thinks of the last time they were in such close proximity. After spiders exploded in a man’s stomach and Penelope took on the guilt of responsibility. He’d had to tell her again and again, over and over, that it wasn’t her fault. Luke told it to her while he held her that first day, the day it happened, while she cried. He told her when she’d called him days later, in the middle of the night, having woken from a nightmare. He’d told her when he caught her staring into the distance at dinner, her favorite vegetarian mapo tofu untouched on the table in front of her, growing cold.
This is what we do for each other, Luke thinks. The two of them caught like binary stars, orbiting each other endlessly. For as long as they’ve known each other - well, for as long as she finally started to like him - they’ve been there for each other, trading off who would support who over whatever calamity had befallen them that week.
She’s staring into his face, her eyes flicking all over - from his tear stained cheeks to his red, watery eyes, to the tremble left in his lips. Penelope is taking him all in, taking stock. Something she’d been doing since the moment he called her and brokenly told her the news of Roxy’s illness. She’d dropped everything and run to his house in such a haste that she’d managed to forget a couple curlers in her hair. He remembered he couldn’t meet her eyes, then. He couldn’t bear to see his own pain reflected back at him. So he’d stared at her hair curlers as he told her he would need to put down his best friend.
This time, he meets her eyes fully, and he can see her features relax when she is satisfied with what she finds there. He thinks it’s a hint of healing, or at the very least - that he’s not going to kill himself. And for however briefly the thought may have flitted through his mind, he had too many responsibilities now. Too many people to care about, that care about him.
Penelope offers him a watery smile. He can’t help but reach up to cup her cheek, his thumb lightly brushing at the tears there. Luke had never thought he’d have someone in his life who would cry for him.
With him.
Luke realizes with a start that the only reason he even has her in his life is because of Roxy. The first time Penelope had ever given him a chance - the first time she’d ever turned her radiant smile on him - was because of Roxy. And she’d been his opportunity to take a hammer and chisel to Penelope’s stone exterior and start chipping away. And it had worked. Every bump in their developing relationship was always smoothed over with a Roxy photo, which turned into Roxy videos, which turned into taking walks around the park while walking Roxy together, which turned into Penelope falling asleep on Luke’s couch with Roxy draped across her legs.
He smiles to himself, and Penelope smiles back, albeit looking a little confused, unsure of what he is smiling about.
“I was just - just remembering,” Luke starts. He sits up and moves his hold to her hands, not yet wanting to let go of the human contact, the spark of life caused by the friction of their skin, burning into him, a bright point in the void, keeping him tethered. “Remembering that first time you met Roxy.”
Penelope’s breath hitches but she nods enthusiastically, happy that Luke is speaking. “She made me think maybe I’d been a little too hard on you. Just a little,” Penelope amends, and laughs. “Because - because if that sweet, beautiful creature could like you, I knew there had to be something redeemable in there.” She pokes a finger into his chest for emphasis.
Luke chuckles and looks at Roxy’s gravestone.
Forever Loyal.
He considers the words he’d chosen for her headstone. The options had been overwhelming, but Penelope had been with him, and she’d gently guided him through the endless choices. Instead of the dozens and dozens of options of phrases and fonts and stone material and engraving embellishments, she would narrow it down to just a couple and present those choices to him. What do you think, Luke.. I like this one, or this one? An easy either/or instead of an infinity. She’d made it manageable. Luke hadn’t even noticed it happening, but when he thinks back on it, he finds himself overwhelmed with gratitude.
“Roxy - she saved my life more than once,” Luke says, a note of wonder in his voice.
“What do you mean?” Penelope asks softly. She knew the original story. He’d told it to her one night over too many mai tais at the bar, after the rest of the team had melted into the night and there was just him and her hunched over a sticky, wobbly table, talking into the night. He’d told her all about the PTSD, the pain and hurt and anger, and the suicidal urges. And he’d told her all about how Roxy had helped him through it.
“She knew she couldn’t be there for me forever,” Luke says.
Forever Loved.
Roxy had been his lifeline for so long, and Luke realized that the entire time he’d been treading water since she’d left, there had been a life preserver right there. In view and in reach. He just hadn’t seen it.
Penelope.
“Without her, I wouldn’t have you.”
It feels freeing for him to say it. He’s almost ashamed of how long it’s taken him to realize it - that the anchor he’d been searching for had been dragged to his shores long ago, by Roxy. She always knew what he needed, in every moment. In every trip on the trails, running ahead of him to keep his speed up. In every late night panic attack, nuzzling into him and licking his face, keeping him grounded. Beelining to Penelope that first time they met, giving her a kiss and making her smile the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. A smile that erased a little bit of the darkness he’d brought back with him from the case. A smile that made him fall in love with her a little bit right there in the hallway by the elevator.
The same smile that crosses her face now. Beaming at him with joy and love, and every good emotion that he’d thought he’d never feel again after getting out of the Army, until Roxy had dragged them back out of him.
“She brought us together,” Penelope agrees. He can see the tears forming in her eyes again. He knows she misses Roxy too.
“I love you,” Luke says suddenly, the words bursting out of him. He doesn’t think of the words before saying them; they just.. happen.
Penelope stares at him, shocked. “Luke, what-”
He doesn’t want to hear whatever self defense mechanism she’s about to pull out, so Luke cuts her off with the best avenue of action he can think of.
He kisses her.
She makes a brief muffled noise of surprise the second his lips meet hers, but when he slips his hand to the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair and pulling her as close to him as is physically possible, she flips like a switch. He feels her hands on his back, gripping his shirt there. She tilts her head and arcs her back, making the angle more comfortable for the both of them. They both open their mouths a little, experimentally, and Luke tastes the tears on her lips. Or maybe he tastes his own. It’s cold out, but Penelope feels impossibly hot against him, her body and mouth radiating heat. Heat and life, and Luke eagerly clings to the feeling; he clings to her.
After a moment of desperate contact, they pull apart. Penelope’s confused, and lets the emotion splay across her face, as unmistakable as a neon sign in the dark. Like she could ever hide how she’s feeling, Luke thinks fondly.
“I’m hungry,” Luke says, pointedly not addressing what he just said or what they just did. He knows they’re going to talk about it. He can already see the gears turning in Penelope’s head and one thing she is unable to do is ignore something that needs to be dissected. But he wants to gather his thoughts for a bit. And he wants to just enjoy this moment.
“W- what?” she replies, blinking rapidly. A rush of words tumbles out of her, no single thought said to completion as her mind churns. “Luke - you - you just - and then we - oh my gosh - we kis…” She trails off and looks at him for an explanation.
“We should eat,” he says. He lets go of her finally, and wipes at the partially dried tears on his face. He knows there will be more later, but for now, something in him has settled. He was no longer adrift aimlessly at sea, because the anchor he’d been looking for was here. Already with him.
“Oh. Okay,” Penelope says, too dumbfounded to put up an argument.
Luke stands up and holds out a hand to her, a silent invitation. Penelope touches her lips briefly, then takes the proffered hand, letting him pull her up to stand next to him. Luke glances one more time at Roxy’s headstone before leading Penelope away.
“Did I ever tell you about the time Roxy locked me out of my apartment in nothing but a towel?” Luke asks as they walk together, once again as close as possible, their arms bumping against each other as they do.
Penelope laughs. The sound is familiar to him, always welcome. Like home. “No, what happened?”
Luke grins. He loves this story and he can’t believe he hasn’t told it to her yet. He wants to tell Penelope every story about Roxy. To transfer every memory he has to her; to keep Roxy alive a little bit longer.
He squeezes Penelope’s hand as they slowly make their way out of the cemetery and he launches into the story, making sure to go into every detail. The weird noise he heard outside the door, the color of the towel he quickly wrapped around himself as he ran out of the shower. The immediate realization of his predicament the second he’d heard Roxy bump against the front door and click it closed with its automatic lock.
Penelope listens with rapt attention, interjecting an “oh no!” or laughing wherever appropriate. He thinks about other times he’s taken walks with Penelope; times where Roxy was there, walking alongside them. Luke knows she’s not there now, of course, so he doesn’t look down. He doesn’t want to see the empty space.
Instead he looks at Penelope as he regales her with his story, and when she throws her head back to laugh about how when he’d finally got back into the apartment, he found Roxy going to town on the dog treats, he sends a silent final thank you to his girl. He sends it out of his mind, into the ether, to doggy heaven - wherever it needs to go. He knows it will find her.
Thank you, Roxy, for saving my life… again.