I Met You At the End of the World - chapter three: The World Finds Ways to Sting You... and then One Day Decides to Bring You Something to Believe In
Chapter summary: Luke dwells on his newly-discovered feelings for Penelope amid a case about medical experimentation, the two become closer, and a major break is made in the case of the hitmen hunting Garcia.
Chapter word count: 5527
Total word count: 16,622
Songs referenced: "Something to Believe In" by Jeremy Jordan and Kara Lindsay, and "It's Nice to Have a Friend" by Taylor Swift
Can also be read here on Ao3
“I’m in,” Penelope declared, a smile on her face as she dropped a purple fluffy pen to the center of the table where she and Luke were playing poker that evening after work. Something had shifted between the two of them the night before when they’d had dinner, but she didn’t know what. All she knew was that she enjoyed spending time with him, and, ever the optimist, she was extraordinarily glad that this terrible situation had brought such a wonderful friend into her life. In times like these, it’s nice to have a friend.
Luke, on the other hand, knew exactly what had shifted between them the night before. Or, at least, what had shifted between them from his point of view. However, he had elected not to tell anyone about his newly discovered feelings. Not any of their friends, and certainly not Penelope. It was neither the place nor time for any of that, and, the more he thought about it, Luke felt slightly guilty about his feelings. He was here to protect Penelope, not fall for her. Besides, he’d be leaving soon enough, and he was sure those feelings would fade as soon as he no longer saw her every day. Besides, he didn’t want to make things awkward when she inevitably rejected him and they still had to work together. Penelope was already in the middle of a really terrible situation, and it would be incredibly insensitive of him to try to pursue anything with her. Besides, Morgan would probably be none too pleased with him, considering both her current circumstances and the fact that she was like family to him. Luke had decided that being her friend was all he could ask for, and friends was more than enough for him, and definitely better for her. He knew that in a situation like the one she was currently experiencing, it’s nice to have a friend. So, he decided that he’d make it his personal mission to make her smile at least once a day. Today, that was being done through poker, thanks to a deck of cards he’d brought from home, and her little knick knacks that she’d volunteered as her side of the “pot,” not that Luke would keep them should he win, knowing they were her prized possessions. Besides, he wouldn’t need to. Her smile at playing their game would be enough of a prize for him. God did he sound sappy. He knew it, he just couldn’t find it within himself to care. He was just throwing in whatever he had on him that could be deemed of value, but again, it was all for show.
“Eh, I think you’re bluffing,” Luke replied. “So, I will see your fuzzy pen, and I will raise you…” he paused for a moment, rifling through his pockets, “my ten-stamps-for-a-free-hot-dog card for the hot dog stand down the road from my place.”
“I don’t understand why we’re betting,” Penelope laughed. “I don’t eat meat!”
“Well A,” Luke said. “I have no use for all your fuzzy pens, so we’re even, and B, poker is no fun unless you have something on the line.”
“Fine,” Penelope conceded. “Give me three cards.
Luke did as she asked, and checked his own hand. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Penelope groaned when she looked at her new cards. “What? Really?”
Luke tried to swallow his laugh. “You have heard the expression ‘a poker face’ before, right?”
Penelope frowned down at her cards, then up at him, then her frown morphed into a smile as she stuck her tongue out at him. “You have heard it’s rude to make fun of people before, right?”
Luke threw his hands up in the air in mock surrender. “I am not making fun!”
“I know, I know, I’m just teasing.”
Luke opened his mouth to make a comment, but she cut him off with the point of a finger.
“But! Before you say ‘I thought it was rude to make fun,’ teasing and making fun are not the same thing.”
Luke laughed again. “Alright, alright, look, whatever you say.”
She smiled back at him, but her smile slowly drifted away, and he noticed.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She only shrugged in response.
He reached his hand across the table to rest it on hers. “This won’t last forever, Penelope."
“It feels like it will. I’m scared. There are people out there who want to hurt me, I’m scared I’m gonna be stuck in here because there are people that want to hurt me…”
“Hey, that’s why I’m here, okay?” Luke assured her. “To help make sure that those people out there who want to hurt you never get the chance to.”
She nodded, and then her phone rang. Picking it up, she sighed. “It’s Hotch. We have a case.”
She began packing up their things, and he stood up with her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “We’re going to take these guys down. In the meantime, you just have to stay strong. Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.” She leaned in and hugged him. “Thank you.”
He leaned his head down to her shoulder, the way he always did when he hugged someone. “Any time.”
***
Penelope stood at the front of the Round Table Room, the presentation ready on the screen behind her. She clicked a button on her remote, zooming in on the location of this particular case. “St. Augustine, Florida, two bodies were found early this evening in a remote wooded area just west of the city. Neither have been identified yet.”
Something about the pictures that popped up on the screen caught Tara’s attention. “This woman’s complexion…”
“She was exsanguinated,” Penelope replied, explaining why the woman was so pale. “Which is a really fun word to say, but I didn’t know its really terrible meaning until I started working here.”
Luke had to duck his head down to look at his files to hide his smile. God, she was adorable.
“Odd that only the female victim had her blood removed,” Rossi said.
“Well the male victim might have been collateral damage,” JJ suggested. “Or a witness that needed to be silenced.”
“I mean it is the kind of message that rival drug gangs will send to each other,” Luke pointed out, having recovered from his little moment and trying to make sure no one noticed. Trying to keep a secret from profilers could be hard, but he was banking on the facts that he’d been undercover and the team didn’t know him well enough to know his tells to help him keep the secret. He could only hope then that he didn’t slip up around Morgan, the only person who would definitely be able to pick up on it. “The Curiel syndicate recently set up shop in Florida.”
“Except it looks like these two were meant to vanish without anyone the wiser,” Rossi countered. “How is that a message?”
“Well cartels have also been known to use murder as a form of voodoo,” Morgan replied. “In 1989, a University of Texas student was murdered by a satanic gang while on Spring Break.”
“Well my gut says it has nothing to do with drugs,” JJ stated. “More like straight-out vampirism or someone with a blood fetish.”
Hotch was already standing and putting his files in his briefcase. “It’s late, and we need to hit the ground running. Wheels up in 30.”
After a quick call to his sitter to tell her he needed her to take Roxy for at least the next night, Luke and the others were right behind him on their way to the airstrip.
***
Once on the jet and at cruising altitude so Penelope could call in, the team continued to discuss the case.
“The coroner attributes the lacerations on the bodies to animal bites,” Morgan said as he flipped through the file. “Apparently there’s a lot of raccoons in the area.”
JJ sighed. “Maybe so, but the media’s going all-in with Satanic Mutilation.”
Hotch considered this. “It’s happened before. The West Memphis Three case showed how animal activity on a corpse could be mistaken for ritualized torture.”
“After the first bite, the insect infestation expands and distorts the open wound,” Rossi added.
“Okay,” Penelope cut in. “Here’s my finger, here’s the mute button. Are you guys done talking about critter damage?”
Luke smiled at her comment, knowing the animal lover in her was probably none too pleased to be hearing about all the disgusting things an animal could do to a dead body, and finding her reaction endearing.
“You can put your finger down, Baby Girl,” Morgan assured her. “We’re done.”
“Thank you. And JJ’s right, local news and radio outlets are going wild with this as a blood-worshipping cult murder.” She paused for a moment, then continued. “Hey, new information. Both of those bodies have just been identified. Cheyenne Pravato, 23, and George Henning, 71.”
“Any connection?” Hotch asked.
Luke would be surprised if there was no connection, since the age and sex difference meant that they couldn’t both be surrogates, at least not of the same person.
“My level one search says no, my level two through twenty await. Cheyenne was a waitress that is currently unemployed, Henning was a retired steelworker from Pennsylvania, lived in Florida for a few years. They both went missing three days ago.”
“Three days?” Tara repeated in shock. “The coroner estimated the time of death as less than twenty-four hours from the time of discovery.”
“Means the unsub had the vics for two whole days before killing them,” Luke stated. “So he almost definitely has some kind of secondary location where he holds and kills them before dumping their bodies in the woods.”
“Preliminary indicators show no sign of torture or sexual assault,” JJ said. “What is he doing with them?”
Hotch took the reigns then. “Dave, you find out what you can about Cheyenne from friends and family. Morgan, you do the same for Henning. Lewis and Alvez, you go to the M.E., and JJ, I need you to reign in the media. Hysteria’s growing and we need to contain it.”
***
Once Luke and Tara arrived at the M.E.’s office, they were greeted by a Dr. Gaylen who was quick to get started.
“I’m still waiting on the full tox screen from the male victim,” he informed them.
“We think they may have been held for up to two days,” Luke said. “Were they fed?”
“Stomach contents were empty, but nutrition and hydration levels were normal. My guess is they were both fed through an IV. I did find one curiosity.” Dr. Gaylen pulled back the sheet over George to reveal his legs.
“It looks like another animal bite,” Tara remarked.
“Not under magnification,” he responded. “It’s actually a surgically precise triangle.”
Tara and Luke exchanged a look and examined the mark closer. A curiosity indeed.
Dr. Gaylen’s phone rang then, and he went to answer it. “Dr. Gaylen… You’re positive of that?” He hung up the phone and returned to the agents. “The tox screen and DNA tests on George Henning just came back. Are you ready for this? Most of the blood in his body isn’t his. It’s Cheyenne’s.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. It was what?
***
The two returned to the police precinct the team was working out of, and relayed this new discovery to them.
“The blood drained from Cheyenne was put into George Henning?” Morgan repeated, disgusted.
“I agree that that is strange,” Tara said. “And a triangle was cut out from his calf muscle.”
“Dear Diary,” Rossi said. “Just when I thought I heard it all…”
“And there’s still something in the toxicology screen the M.E. can’t identify,” Hotch said.
“Yeah,” Luke confirmed. “We’re hoping we’re going to find out something more in the next few hours.”
JJ walked into the room then, back from meeting with the media outlets covering the story. “So, it took a little arm-wrestling, but the media finally saw the wisdom in toning down the whole demon worship angle.”
Luke knew she was talking metaphorically about arm-wrestling, but he had no doubt from what he’d seen of her in the field that she could most likely absolutely destroy practically anyone in an actual arm-wrestling contest. He wondered if he should challenge her to one one of these days.
“Don’t take a victory lap just yet,” Rossi told her, handing her a file.
She examined the paper he had given her and winced. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m just trying to work out the whole calf muscle business,” Tara said.
“Triangles are big in Illuminati symbolism,” Rossi pointed out.
Morgan considered that. “This is bending back toward cult behavior.”
“What did you find out about George Henning?” Hotch asked him.
“According to the neighbors, the guy was a shut-in. No friends or family, a lot of health problems. Hypertension, Parkinson’s.”
Rossi’s brows furrowed. “Cheyenne was the opposite. Vegan into New Age lifestyles. Never met a harmonic convergence she didn’t want to converge on.”
Hm. Luke thought to himself. She sounds a bit like Penelope. “I get it,” he said. “With George, he was a recluse, but how did nobody notice Cheyenne missing for three days?”
“Her friends said she was flighty,” Rossi explained. “It was not unusual for her to take off without notice for a week or two.”
“This unsub did his homework,” Morgan stated. “He knew that both victims could go missing without any alarms going off.”
“Transfusions and sustained IV feeding take skill, planning, and access to materials,” Hotch remarked. “And, crude as it was, the replacing of the old blood with new is dialysis. What if the triangle isn’t a symbol but a tissue sample? Could this be medical experimentation?”
Tara agreed with him immediately. “Yeah, I mean, you’ve got a youthful, healthy host in Cheyenne, and a sick test subject in George.”
“If the new missing girl’s his next victim, the unsub could be getting ready to try again,” JJ said.
Rossi nodded. “And his experiment takes two to tango. If Andrea mirrors Cheyenne…”
Luke picked up Rossi’s train of thought. “Then who mirrors George? He’s not done yet, there’s another victim coming.”
There hadn’t been any other missing persons reports, so they decided to call Penelope and see if they could find anything that might help their medical experimentation angle.
“Sir, yes sir?” Penelope said as she answered.
“Garcia I need you to do a search of doctors and medical professionals in the region, and see what kind of red flags pop up,” Hotch instructed.
“But of course. Carmine, scarlet, cherry, crimson, maroon? What shade of red are we looking for?”
Luke was unequivocally not thinking about all the different shades of red lipstick he’d seen her wear in the time he had known her. Definitely not.
“Ethics violations, improper protocol.”
“This person may have washed out of medical school or gotten in trouble with the licensing board for unorthodox practices,” JJ added.
“That’s a deep shade,” Penelope said. “I’ll hit you back when I have something.”
***
About an hour later, Penelope used the tip of one of her fuzzy pens to press Hotch’s speed dial buttons.
“What’ve you got, Garcia?”
“Nothing on my crimson flag doctor search,” she told him regretfully, “but I did learn about something with a super cool name. The Mad Scientist’s Club.”
“What’s that?” Luke asked from the other side of the line.
Penelope smiled at her new friend’s voice. “They’re a student group from the Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville. Before they disbanded, they used to get together and talk about experimental ways to cure disease.”
“Do you have the names of the people in this club?” JJ asked her.
“Eh,” Penelope replied. “Kinda, sorta, not really. They were totally informal. Here’s the part that made me sit up straight: they used to meet at a local cemetery.”
“Let me guess,” JJ said. “The same cemetery where Andrea Gambrell disappeared.”
Penelope nodded enthusiastically, even though JJ couldn’t see her. “Yeah! The very one!”
“Alright,” Hotch said. “Keep working on the names, and see if you can find out why the club was disbanded.”
“Okay,” Penelope replied, hanging up the call and getting straight to work.
***
Not long after that call, Tara got one from the M.E., and she put it on speaker so Luke, who was with her, could hear. “Agents Lewis and Alvez,” she said as she answered.
“Yes, Agents,” Dr. Gaylen said. “I’ve got the full tox screen on George Henning. There were massive amounts of Levodopa in his system.”
Tara seemed thrown by this. “The Parkinson’s drug?”
“Correct,” Dr. Gaylen confirmed.
Tara and Luke exchanged a look. That was strange.
“Okay but his blood was replaced with Cheyenne’s,” Tara stated. “So does that mean the Levodopa was introduced to his system after the transfusion?”
“Yes ma’am. And we got the results from the other DNA samples and the surprises keep coming. Found traces of mesoglea and testudinata keratin.”
Luke’s brows furrowed in confusion. Not being a scientist or a doctor, he had never heard these words before. “Which are?”
“Jellyfish and turtle,” Dr. Gaylen told him. “George Henning had animal DNA in his system.”
Tara and Luke exchanged another look, this time one of pure shock. He had what?
***
The two had raced back from their coffee run to tell the team what the M.E. had told them, and Hotch called Penelope to update her. “Garcia’s tracking recent aquarium and exotic fish sales in the area,” he told them once he got off the phone with her.
“Aquarium sales in Florida, that’s like tracking snow shovel sales in Alaska,” Rossi commented.
“But jellyfish have unique habitat and dietary needs, so hopefully that’ll narrow it down a little,” Hotch replied.
A police officer entered the room then. “A body’s just been found. Officer on the scene thinks it might be the work of our guy.”
***
JJ and Rossi were dispatched to the scene, and when they were back it was time to deliver the profile.
As was often the case, Hotch started off. “We believe we’re looking for a male between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. He may have had some medical training, and he’s able to obtain large quantities of controlled pharmaceuticals.”
“This guy is working off the legal and ethical grid,” Luke said. “And he’s doing highly dangerous medical experimentation.”
Tara picked up the thread then. “We believe he’s searching for a cure for degenerative neurological diseases, but we don’t know why.”
“It could be personal,” JJ offered. “Either he or a loved one suffers from a disease and it’s a way to leapfrog conventional research in an attempt to find the cure.”
“Or it might not be personal at all,” Morgan told the officers. “This could be the unsub playing God, assuming the told of savior and rescuer of those in need.”
“Another motive is old-fashioned greed,” Rossi said. “Financial rewards for medical breakthroughs are substantial.
“Whatever the case,” Hotch continued. “Two divergent methodologies are at work in this unsub.”
Morgan nodded. “On the one hand, he does show signs of logic and reason. The scientific method of trial and error.”
“On the other hand,” Luke said, “this person injected animal DNA into George Henning’s body revealing an irrational, almost fantastical approach to achieving these medical goals.”
“And this dichotomy might be present in his everyday life,” Hotch stated. “He might appear charming and trustworthy, which allows him to abduct his victims with little or no difficulty.”
“But the other half of his Jekyll-and-Hyde personality would clash with authority figures,” JJ remarked. “We believe that he had a conflict with a medical establishment in the past.”
“We have reason to believe that the most recent victim, Andrea Gambrell, is still alive,” Morgan informed the officers. “The younger person is needed alive to provide healthy blood.”
“But a new sick subject to receive that blood will almost certainly be sought out,” Luke added.
Rossi spoke again then. “Post-mortem violence on the most recent victim is a strong indicator that the killer is losing control.”
“This increased volatility is cause for concern,” Hotch said. “If there are two voices in his head, the violent one is taking over.”
***
Eventually, Penelope was able to find one member of the Mad Scientists club, and Tara was sent to interview her. She was able to give Tara a tentative first name, either Richard or Robert, who in turn had Penelope run a search for that, along with her search of zoo and aquarium staff in the area who might have had access to the animals the unsub was using, as per Hotch’s direction. The following morning, a doctor was killed in a nearby hospital, to which JJ and Rossi were sent out. They came back having found out that she was a neurologist and the unsub was likely getting his extra supply of drugs from her. They needed to find out if she was the doctor of George Henning or Harold McDermott, the recent victim, as well as look into any of her current patients. In all likelihood, one of them would be next. In the meantime, Penelope had Tara’s search results ready for them.
“Well,” Tara said, flipping through the pages in her file. “Garcia went through every medical student in the north Florida area with the name of Richard or Robert, and I gotta tell you guys, it’s a long list.”
“So which one is our magic man?” JJ asked.
“Well, hey,” Luke said, holding his hand out to Tara. “Many hands makes light work, pass me some.”
As she did, Tara noticed Rossi fidgeting with his pen, a strange look on his face. “What’s up, Rossi?”
“They identified the bird DNA in George Henning as coming from a scarlet macaw.”
JJ nodded. “Mhmm. And?”
“It’s got me thinking about Turritopsis dohrnii.”
Luke looked up from the papers to the older man. “Turri… what?”
“It’s called the immortal jellyfish,” Rossi explained. “Endlessly recycles its own cells through a process called transdifferentiation, a kind of lineage reprogramming.”
“Oh my goodness,” JJ joked, drawing out each word for emphasis. “Dr. Spencer Reid, master of disguise.”
Luke and Tara laughed at that. Luke had yet to meet the famed “Boy Wonder,” as Penelope called him, but the stories he had heard from both her and Morgan were enough to assure him that JJ’s remark had been bang-on. Rossi’s little spiel was exactly something Reid would say.
“No disguise,” Rossi replied. “I called the kid last night.”
The group laughed harder at that.
“But think about it,” Rossi continued. “Jellyfish, turtles, sea urchin, and now, scarlet macaw. What do they all have in common?”
“A long lifespan,” Tara answered.
“Exactly,” Rossi said. “Longer than a human’s.”
“So it means the unsub may not be focused on a specific disease but rather, longevity?” Luke asked.
Rossi nodded.
“Oh god,” Tara exclaimed. “Guys, I think I know why the Magic Man thought this place was so magical.” She pointed at the map they were using to pinpoint the unsub’s hunting grounds. “We are right around the corner from the legendary Fountain of Youth.”
***
“Hey, I’ve got Garcia on the phone,” Penelope could hear Tara say to someone from the other side of the line.
“What is it, Garcia?” Hotch asked her.
“Sir, you were right about the scarlet macaw,” she told him. They are very hard to find. When you can find one, they’re real pricey. However, a private zoo outside of St. Augustine reported a macaw stolen. The owner suspected it to be a former employee, but they didn’t have any proof. I checked out this former employee, Bobby Boles, Bobby being short for Robert, Robert being maybe our mad scientist?”
“Did Robert Boles ever go to medical school?” Tara asked her.
Penelope checked. “Yeah, he totally did. He flunked out in the middle of his first year though. He’s always been sort of a misfit, it seems.”
“How so?” Tara asked.
“He was home-schooled from an early age ‘cause he didn’t fit in with other kids, lots of childhood therapy.”
“What did Boles do after he dropped out of med school?”
“Lots of part-time jobs. He currently works as an orderly…” Penelope felt her stomach sink as she saw where he worked. “At the same hospital as Dr. Braga.”
“Where is he now?” Hotch asked her.
Penelope searched for that information, but to no avail. “I can’t find a physical address, he hasn’t had one for a while. I’ll keep searching.” With that, she hung up her phone and got right back into it.
***
The rest of the team was told of Penelope’s possible breakthrough of their mystery-man-slash-unsub, after which they also discovered that an elderly woman by the name of Eileen Kebler hadn’t shown up for her appointments with Dr. Braga for the last two days. Rossi, JJ, and Tara went to check out her residence, and the rest of them stayed behind.
“Hotch, we think we have something,” Morgan called out.
The Unit Chief approached him and Luke where they were sitting at a table. “What is it?”
“It’s Garcia’s list of recent saltwater aquarium customers.”
“Is Robert Boles on the list?” Hotch asked them.
“No,” Luke admitted. “But he could be using a fake name. It’s where one of the shipments was delivered that caught our eye.” He pointed out the aforementioned location. “The parking lot of a closed medical facility.”
The three of them were instantly in an SUV on their way to the facility.
“All right, thanks, Garcia,” Luke said as he hung up the phone. To the others, he then said, “Robert Boles got a summer job at a gift shop near the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. He got fired for breaking in after-hours.”
“Maybe that’s where the obsession with eternal youth started,” Morgan suggested.
When they arrived at the abandoned medical facility, they found Robert Boles holding a knife over Andrea Gambrell and arguing with another man.
“Robert Boles, drop the weapon,” Hotch ordered.
Luke and Morgan entered the room right behind him.
“It’s over, man,” Morgan said to him. “You’re not getting out.”
“But the knife down slowly,” Luke said, slowly and clearly.
To his credit, Boles listened to them. He dropped the knife and raised his hands, putting them behind his head. The other man in the room looked horrified.
As Morgan arrested Robert Boles, the other man came up to Luke and Hotch. “My wife needs help,” he pleaded with them. Luke realized the wife in question must be Eileen Kebler, and this was her husband.
“Where is she?” Hotch asked.
“In the next room,” he answered. “Call an ambulance, please.”
Hotch nodded. “Show me.”
They left, and Luke rushed to Andrea’s side to free her from her restraints. She was alive and breathing, but unconscious.
As Luke undid the final restraint on Andrea and Morgan hauled their unsub from the room, Robert Boles delivered one final chilling declaration. “I can do my research from prison. No one can stand in the way of the future!”
Luke shuddered. The mentality of a man who thought himself unstoppable… with a complex like he had… was a very dangerous thing indeed. Andrea woke up then, and started to cry, so Luke, not knowing what else to do, pulled her in for a hug and rubbed her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. “It’s okay,” he whispered to her. “It’s okay.”
He really hoped it would be.
***
On the jet back, Morgan sat down beside his old friend and passed him a water bottle. “Hey, man. I feel like we’ve barely gotten the chance to catch up since you’ve joined us.”
Luke accepted the bottle graciously. “Yeah, it has, it’s all been kind of crazy.”
“So how have you been adjusting to all this?”
“Oh it’s great,” Luke replied. “I’m loving it, actually. I was unsure at first, you know? But there’s a lot more that’s similar in our jobs than I thought, so I’m feeling a lot more comfortable than I thought.”
“Well you’re doing great,” Morgan assured him. “You fit right in, I’d swear you were actually a part of the team.”
Luke’s face lit up. “Seriously? Thank you?”
Morgan smiled and patted his friend on the back. “Any time. We’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
“Yeah, I’ll miss you guys too.”
***
Once they landed, of course, Luke made a beeline for Penelope’s office. She was dressed in her pyjamas and ready for another night on her office couch, but she always had time for a conversation with one of her “fine furry friends.” Especially one that was quickly climbing the ranks in her list of favorites.
“Hey, you,” she said as she opened the door.
“Hey,” he said, stepping in and sitting down on the couch to face her. “How’re you doing?”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to stay optimistic, but it gets harder and harder, you know?”
He nodded sympathetically. “I know. Is there anything I can do to help?”
She shook her head. “Not really. Your visits help though, so thank you, seriously. I still can’t believe you can actually visit me this often. Like, you have no one to go home to other than Roxy? How on earth is a guy like you possibly still single? How are girls not falling at your feet?”
Well feel free to fall at my feet any day. “Well, army rangers and fugitive task force don’t tend to lend themselves well to dating.”
Penelope nodded, understanding. “Yeah, neither does this. Thank god I’m single right now, honestly. This kind of thing could wreak havoc on a relationship.”
“You know, I’m kind of surprised you’re single too,” Luke remarked, bumping her shoulder. “You’re pretty great, Penelope Garcia.”
She laughed. “Thank you. But I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to find the kind of person who wants the same things I do. The last person I seriously dated proposed without even ever asking me if marriage was something I wanted, which it wasn’t. He asked me to leave all this behind and move to a farm with him.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “I’m sorry, what? How long were you two together?”
“Four years.”
“And he asked you to move to a farm with him? What part of this,” he gestured to the high-tech room around them, “screams willing to live the rest of my life on a farm?”
“You’ve known me for a few weeks and yet somehow you know me better than he ever did. And you know what else? He is also a technical analyst, but for a different department.”
Luke threw his head back and groaned. “No! That’s even worse!” They were silent for a moment before he said, “Hey, can I ask you something random and completely unrelated?”
“Sure.”
“Your last name, ‘Garcia,’ is that from the little-known, blonde-haired, Swedish Garcias?”
“Actually, it’s from the family that took me in after my parents died.”
Luke instantly felt like the world’s biggest asshole. “Oh my god I am so sorry,” he said, absolutely mortified. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear I was just curious, I—”
Penelope laughed. “Relax, I’m just messing with you. Well, kind of. Garcia was my stepdad’s last name, he legally adopted me when my mom married him. My mom and stepdad did die, however, so that part I’m not kidding about.”
“I’m so sorry,” Luke said genuinely. “Can I ask what happened?”
“I was eighteen years old, and I had stayed out past curfew one night. They went out to look for me, I got home after they left. They were hit by a drunk driver and killed instantly. I’ve felt guilt over it ever since. I probably always will.”
Luke took her hand in both of his and squeezed. “Hey, I know you’ve probably been told this a million times, but that was not your fault.”
She met his eyes and squeezed his hand in return. “I know that, logically, but it’s hard to accept that, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that. I’m so sorry Penelope.”
They had a moment, then, of complete silence. Just the two of them staring at each other and holding on tight to the other’s hand. Nothing was happening, yet it still felt deeply intimate.
The moment was soon broken by Hotch entering her office, and they ripped their hands apart from each other, strangely feeling like they were caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be.
“Garcia,” Hotch said. “I need you to come with me right now.”
“Now, now?” Penelope asked.
He nodded. “Yes, now.”
“Should I change? I’m in my PJs—”
Hotch cut her off and spoke to Luke. “Alvez, get some clothes for her and bring them to us. We don’t have time to waste.”
“Sir,” Penelope implored. “I’m scared, what’s going on?”
“There’s been a major break in the case of the hitmen hunting you.”
Penelope’s eyes widened in disbelief. “There has?”
Hotch nodded. “And we may have found a way to bring the whole network down.”
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