Chapter Text
When it rains it pours. It was a phrase her mother had uttered a million times in her childhood--when several bad things all happened at once. Penelope had never really understood what her mother meant until she’d grown older and then she had wished that she could remain ignorant forever. For a long time she had closed herself off from people because it was better that she be isolated than that she be hurt. Shane thought that he knew her, but he had only ever scratched through the outer layers. He’d never really known Penelope.
At the BAU, Penelope had finally allowed the team to see her. The surprise had been when they had accepted her, quirks and all. It had been a startling realization to discover that they were family. JJ and Emily were the sisters that Penelope had always longed for as a child. Hotch and Rossi were semi-paternal figures that Penelope respected and admired far more than her real father. Then there were Morgan and Reid...
God, Morgan and Reid.
Derek was one of her best friends. He was beautiful, charming, caring, intelligent, sweet... he was a truly good man. Their teasing, flirting banter was their way of dealing with the brutality and evil that they had to deal with in their job--rather like the gallows humor employed by doctors to counteract the horror they dealt with in trauma units. Derek listened to her, really listened, and he gave credence to what she had to say. They hung out with one another, watched movies together. Derek had even taught her how to strip a cabinet and re-stain it. They had a give and take that complimented each person’s strengths. Their relationship reminded her a lot of her mother’s relationship with her stepfather.
Reid was her other best friend. Both of them were geniuses, and both enjoyed being around someone who could challenge them intellectually. It wasn’t that the rest of the BAU wasn’t filled with intelligent people because all of them were at the top in all of their testing. It was just that Penelope and Reid weren’t even on the same tier. Penelope was used to people dismissing her as a geek, or ‘the tech girl’. Few realized the sheer intellect and skill required to write all of the programming she did. Reid had been the only one at the FBI to realize that the only reason they had ever caught the Black Queen was that she had let them. She thought it was interesting that the two smartest people she knew liked to spend their time watching Dr. Who marathons. It also didn’t hurt that Spencer was beautiful in his own way, which was completely different from Derek. Spencer was tall and slender and, as Derek had noted more than once, pretty. He had a grace and strength to his form that most people couldn’t see because they had dismissed him as ‘gangly’ or ‘awkward’. If Spencer were uncomfortable he could become awkward, but if he were in his own element Spencer was almost poetic in his movement.
For a couple years Penelope had harbored secret crushes on both men. It was impossible--she knew it was impossible--so she tried to ignore it. The idea that either man would ever look at her with anything more than fond affection. She had dated Kevin Lynch in a desperate maneuver to prove to herself and everyone else how very much she didn’t want either man. That had backfired in a spectacularly awful way when Derek and Spencer started dating. It had started out tentatively with each man slowly feeling out his way. For Penelope it had been a special sort of torture.
When Kevin had proposed she had panicked. She wasn’t proud of it--she was willing to admit that. Then Kevin had done his level best to make her jealous with a string of women. Penelope had wanted so badly to roll her eyes, but she resisted. Then had come the Sci-Fi convention. Penelope still wanted to die from shame whenever she thought about that day.
“I can’t believe that he brought someone else,” she had fumed.
Reid frowned at her. “You brought someone else,” he pointed out.
Penelope sputtered for a moment mentally and her lips spoke without her permission. “Someone I couldn’t possibly be sexually attracted to,” she had blurted out. Oh god. What a ridiculous whopper. He’s going to know I’m lying. Oh god. He’s going to know I’m lying. I am so screwed.
Reid’s face twisted slightly and his voice sounded odd when he replied. “You’re welcome?”
Penelope hurried ahead of him--terrified that at any moment he would call her on her horrendous lie.
But he didn’t. Reid believed her when she lied through her teeth, and after that day he began to treat her differently. There was a stiff politeness, a formality, to the way he spoke to her that had quite a few eyebrows raised at the BAU. JJ and Emily had both pulled her aside and had demanded to know what she had done to Reid. Morgan was a little cool to her as well. Penelope was miserable, but there was no way for her to explain her way out of the whole mess.
/\/\/\/\
Emily was dead. Every time someone died, every time someone left her, it did something to Penelope’s soul. Emily dying was almost as bad as when her mother and stepfather had died. Penelope was heartbroken and she spent several days doing nothing but cry. She knew that everyone at the BAU was upset, and when she was there she tried to be strong and comforting for her friends. At home, she was able to fall apart without worrying about anyone else. Penelope curled up on the couch and hugged a pillow to her chest.
When the phone rang Penelope had ignored it for as long as possible, but eventually she sighed and picked it up.
“Garcia residence,” she sniffled into the phone.
“Penelope?”
Penelope froze and her hand tightened convulsively on the phone. “Rutherford?” She asked stiffly.
“Yes,” her brother replied. “Listen Penelope, something has happened. We need you to come home.”
“Absolutely not,” she retorted.
“It’s about Winthrop,” Rutherford told her.
Penelope’s heart leapt in her chest. She was the youngest of her family and the only girl. She supposed that was why her father allowed her mother to take her when they separated. Penelope had had almost no contact with them since then, except for her brother Winthrop. He was the youngest of her four brothers and the closest to Penelope in age. After her mother and stepfather had died he had tried to communicate with her. He was a bit of a rebel himself and he was constantly skating the thin line of being disowned by their father.
“What about Winthrop?” She demanded.
Rutherford was silent for several minutes. “There was an accident,” he began slowly.
“No,” Penelope whispered.
“I’m sorry, Penelope,” Rutherford murmured. There was a heavy sigh through the phone. “Look, this would be so much easier if you would just come home. There are things we need to discuss.”
“I can’t,” Penelope argued. “There are things here that require my attention.”
“Pen.” Rutherford hadn’t called her that in twenty years.
“Ford,” Penelope sighed. “There’s a lot going on here at the moment.”
“One week, Pen,” Rutherford countered.
“Where?” Penelope asked.
“The compound,” Rutherford informed her.
“I’ll be there,” she agreed reluctantly.
Just when Penelope was fairly certain that her week couldn’t possibly get any worse than it already had... it did.
One of the things that had comforted her about Morgan and Reid being Morgan and Reid was that it was safe. Penelope could tell herself that there was nothing that she could do to make the situation turn out any differently. If she was prettier, or if she was thinner, or if she were less her it wouldn’t change anything. She was a woman, and Reid and Morgan obviously didn’t want that. They wanted one another. She didn’t have to watch Morgan sleep his way through beautiful, skinny, model-like women. She didn’t have to watch pretty starlets hit on Reid. She didn’t have to see any of that and wish with all her heart that she were different.
When a case broke and no one could get ahold of Morgan or Reid, Penelope had offered to go check on both men and bring them in. Hotch had agreed readily and Penelope had headed out in Esther to track down both men. Reid’s apartment was dark and he didn’t answer his door despite her pounding on it and calling through the door.
“Hey!” A little old man with a ridiculous toupee was glaring at her from across the hall. “Do you know what time it is?”
Penelope glanced at her phone. “Um, 4 a.m.?” She offered with a weak smile.
The little old man put his hands on his hips. “You have three seconds to leave or I’m calling the cops.”
Penelope blanched. “Sorry! I’m so sorry. Look, I’m leaving right now. Okay?” She fled the hall and practically ran back to Esther. She slid in to her seat and sighed. “Well, that was an amazing failure. I guess it’s Morgan’s house.”
At least Morgan’s house had both Morgan’s and Reid’s cars parked in the drive. Penelope tried knocking, but no one answered. She sighed and hunted for the spare that Morgan had given her years ago. It was in the very bottom of her purse. She slid it into the lock and turned the knob.
“Morgan? Reid?” Penelope called out. “Guys? I’m sorry to bother you but we’ve got a case. Hotch and JJ have already tried calling you.” Penelope wasn’t sure why she was keeping up the running dialogue, but it felt right. The last thing she wanted to do was startle two trained FBI agents. She had a fair idea that startling either man would be a bad idea.
A soft noise, so muffled that Penelope almost didn’t hear it alerted her to their presence. She moved forward eagerly. Later, Penelope would remember that the room she’d headed toward was the guest bedroom that Morgan always referred to as hers. Somehow that just made it all worse.
The rest of that night/morning passed in a hazy blur that Penelope was never able to recall with any sort of clarity. She saw more of Reid and Morgan than she had ever seen before, but sandwiched between them was a buxom blonde with purple streaks in her hair. Penelope’s jaw dropped open and she stared at the scene before her. Blinding jealousy hit her in the gut and she almost staggered with the pain of it.
“Penelope!” Spence squeaked and almost fell over in his haste to move and cover himself.
“Baby Girl,” Morgan blurted out.
The buxom blonde eyed her curiously. “Hi,” she said politely, but made no move to cover herself. “I’m Candy.”
Penelope blinked. Of course she was. “We’ve got a case,” she told “Candy”--refusing to look at either Spencer or Morgan. “Hotch and JJ tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up. I, um, I volunteered to come check on you.” She paused fighting the urge to make eye contact with Spencer and Derek. “I’ll just go back to the BAU,” she muttered before she fled the scene.
Fighting tears Penelope drove Esther back to FBI Headquarters. Spencer and Derek did like women, rather a lot judging from what they had been doing with Candy. They just didn’t like her. She sniffled and tried to focus on the road in front of her.
“Miss Garcia,” Strauss called as Penelope raced toward the safety of her office.
“Yes, ma’am?” Penelope turned to face her superior reluctantly.
“Have you reconsidered my offer?” Strauss asked.
Penelope grimaced. “Ma’am, I haven’t even looked at it yet. What with... Emily... and then there was my personal leave.”
Understanding filled Strauss’ eyes. “Oh yes, your brother. I’m sorry, Miss Garcia, I had forgotten about that. Perhaps when you get back?”
“Yes ma’am,” Penelope agreed immediately.
Through some truly inspired maneuvering Penelope managed to avoid being alone with Morgan and Reid until the team left. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. Once she was alone, Penelope was willing to admit that she was too emotionally fragile to deal with Morgan or Reid at the moment, but that wasn’t going to matter. By the team got back it would be too late. Penelope would already be headed to the family compound in Vermont. Her chest tightened again and she pressed a hand against her heart.
/\/\/\/\
“I don’t understand.” Penelope stared at the family lawyer hoping that he would start making sense.
Rupert Kingsbury sighed and cast an apologetic glance at the rest of her family before turning back to her. “Winthrop trusted you. I’m sorry, Ford, but we all know that Win wasn’t very happy with the family the last couple of years.”
“What does that mean?” Penelope demanded. She turned to fix a glare on her older brother who had the grace to blush.
“When Winthrop first brought Monique home... we weren’t quiet about the fact that we didn’t approve,” Rutherford admitted.
“Because she was black?” Penelope guessed furiously. She turned to glare at her other brothers, Cornelius and Ulysses. “I can’t believe you!”
“No!” Cornelius protested. He shook his head. “No, Pen, it wasn’t about that.”
“Then what was it, Cory?” Pen asked bitterly.
“Monique didn’t fit in well,” Ford tried to explain. After another furious glare from Penelope he held up his hands defensively. “I mean... she was from a middle-class family. She didn’t understand a lot of Winthrop’s obligations, and she wasn’t quiet about how stupid she thought a lot of them were.”
“She didn’t like the politics,” Penelope guessed. Her brothers nodded.
“Monique thought the parties and the social functions were idiotic,” Ulysses offered. He sighed. “She was... very rude to Gertie Williams.”
Gertrude Williams was the president of the local Junior League and wielded an unbelievable amount of power in the area. Penelope unfortunately knew Gertie very well. Much of her childhood had been spent helping out on various fundraising drives with Gertie’s two horrid daughters, Honoria and Eugenie. Penelope pressed her lips together in a thin line. She would be willing to bet that Monique had been pushed to rudeness by Honoria. Gertie’s eldest daughter had made no secret of the fact that she wanted to marry Winthrop someday. She sighed. It wasn’t worth arguing about now. Winthrop and Monique were dead leaving behind a baby.
“But... surely this can’t be legal,” Penelope protested weakly.
“Miss Sloane,” Kingsbury began.
“Garcia,” Penelope snapped.
Kingsbury winced. “I apologize, Miss Garcia. I meant no slight. However, I can assure you that this is entirely legal.”
“I’m not even married!” Penelope tried again.
Kingsbury smiled at her. “Marriage isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for parenthood.”
“But,” Penelope tried one last time.
“Miss Garcia, maybe if you met your nephew?” Rupert Kingsbury suggested finally.
It only took five minutes. Maybe not even that. Penelope only had to hold William Peregrine Sloane to know that she was going to do exactly what her brother had hoped. Her seven-month old nephew was multi-racial, and it had made her heart ache; she held the tiny baby in her arms and she saw what her babies would look like if Derek had been the father. She swallowed down a sob--refusing to break down in front of her estranged family. Penelope regretted not visiting more often, and getting to know the amazing woman who had agreed to marry Winthrop and who had been William’s mother.
“If I do this... he’s mine, right?” Penelope had demanded. “I mean, you guys can’t change your minds and try and take him from me?”
“Miss Garcia, Winthrop made sure that this was airtight. If you are willing to sign the paperwork then I’ll begin the adoption process. He’ll be your son.” Rupert Kingsbury paused and the silence grew to an uncomfortable stretch. “There’s the matter of your brother’s request...”
Penelope stared down at her nephew’s innocent, sleeping face and nodded. “I’ll do it,” she whispered.
Later that evening she picked up her phone and made a call.
“Strauss? It’s Penelope Garcia. I’m willing to accept the offer, but I have a few conditions.”