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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
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1,621
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1/1
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7
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1,352

Accident

Summary:

Written for Leigh59 on FFN. Her prompt was ‘Morgan gives Pen a bloody nose by mistake’.

Work Text:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.  The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise.  No copyright infringement is intended. 

 

It happened as if in slow motion. He was heading for her office to ask her to join him for lunch just like every other day. Maybe he was a little more enthusiastic today. As he pretty much threw the door open - when she was standing right behind it.

He felt the door hit a barrier and heard the sound of the collision. And then he saw her stumble backwards holding her face. "Outch! Ah!" she mumbled into her hands.

"Penelope!" he called out and quickly stepped forward wishing he could undo what had just happened. "Oh, my God! I'm sorry, sorry! I didn't mean..."

"It's okay." she interrupted him, her voice muffled by her hands still holding her face.

"Baby girl, I'm so sorry. Let me see your face!" he took another step towards her hoping that he could somehow make things any better.

"I'm fine, really." she assured him and snuffled a little. "This wasn't your fault."

"Let me see it!" he commanded, pulled her hands away from her face and stumbled backwards a little when he saw the blood running down her face. "Oh, God, sweetness, I..."

"It's alright." she put him off. "You couldn't know I was standing behind the door."

"Can I... do anything?" He pretty much forced her to sit down in her chair and started examining her nose.

"No, Derek, I'm fine." she declared despite the fact that her nose hurt pretty badly. She couldn't stop herself from wincing when he touched it.

"I'm so sorry." this phrase had become a new mantra on his lips. "Thank goodness, it doesn't seem to be broken. But I should take you to the hospital, just to be sure." He headed for the door, then seemed to reconsider that and turned back towards her.

"I... I'll get you a towel" he stated, "a... and some ice."

That being said he was gone. Penelope sighed. She would have laughed about his behavior - him switching into fully overprotective mode was just too cute - if he hadn't been taking this out on her again. Not that she didn't enjoy the attention. But an overprotective Derek could quickly become challenging - to say the least.

By then she thought things couldn't get worse. She had a date this evening and now she had to go there with a bloody nose. How was she supposed to explain that? Well, you know, working with the FBI can be dangerous. Didn't sound very convincing for a technician.

Only a few minutes after he'd left her, Derek came back with the promised towel and some ice cubes. "Sorry, that's all I could find." he said as he carefully dabbed the blood off of her face and put the ice cubes he'd put into another towel on her nose.

Not that she couldn't have done that herself... Penelope sighed and let him do as he liked. When he was acting like that it was pretty useless to argue with him.

"Now, come on!" Derek commanded. "Let me take you to the hospital! I've already told Hotch that we have to leave."

She opened her mouth to protest but quickly reconsidered it and decided to be a good girl and just let him take her to the hospital. After all, it couldn't hurt. It was better to know for sure that her nose wasn't broken.

Of course, Derek refused to leave her side while she was checked by the doctor. And of course, he asked about a million questions - most of them were if the doctor was really sure that his diagnosis was right.

The elder man just rolled his eyes and Penelope gave him an apologetic look. She hoped that once Derek was sure that her nose wasn't broken and she was going to be fine he would go back to the bureau.

But of course, he didn't. Instead he took her to her apartment where he told her to lay down on the couch and not get up unless it was absolutely inevitable - whatever that meant. Then Derek went to her kitchen and cooked so that Penelope got her lunch. And after that he went to the pharmacy to buy the pain killers the hospital had prescribed.

Things Penelope was very much capable of doing herself - damaged nose or not. Plus, she saw her chances for going on that date tonight fading with every second.

"Thanks." she mumbled when Derek handed her the bag with the pain killers. "You know, you can really go home now. I mean, you..."

"Not a chance, baby girl." Derek interrupted her. "I caused this mess, so now I'm going to take care of you until you've completely recovered."

"Hot stuff, as much as I appreciate that, you don't have to do it." she tried to reason with him. "I'm fine. And you don't need to make up for anything. I can very well take..."

"Sweetness, what did I tell you about arguing with me?" he frowned at her. "I'm gonna stay until your nose is healed, period."

Sighing Penelope let her head drop back against the rest of her couch. That meant she wouldn't go on that date tonight. In fact, she wouldn't go anywhere! It was official, things couldn't get worse. Oh, well, she was certainly going to go insane if Derek really considered sticking around here for long. She just hoped he stopped treating her like that soon!

Maybe she could try and sneak out of the apartment. She spotted her chance when he was in the bathroom. She just had to be quiet and...

"Hey, where do you think you're going?"

She swore silently and turned around. "On a date?"

Derek crossed his arms in front of his muscular chest and raised an eyebrow at her.

Sighing she put her purse back on the stand and mumbled: "Or not."

"I think you should go and lay down for a while." Derek suggested pointing his head towards her bedroom.

"What?" Penelope exclaimed. "I'm fine, I don't need no afternoon nap. I'm not even tired. Besides I first have to put new bedding on."

"I already did that for you." he smiled.

She just rolled her eyes. Now he was forcing her to lay down even though she wasn't the least bit tired. She didn't even feel dizzy or anything, she was FINE! Things were really getting worse. How odd was it having him put on new bedding for her?

"Go and lay down for a while!" he commanded. "You need rest."

"No I don't, I'm..." the look on his face made her keep herself from saying whatever she wanted to say. "Fine." she grumbled. "I'm going to lay down and rest, MOM!"

Derek ignored her comment, followed her to the bedroom and watched her search her wardrobe for a shirt. "Do you need help?" he asked.

"No." she pretty much shouted at him. "I can very well get changed myself. Now would you please turn around?!"

A little unwillingly he did as he was told. The urge to take a look over his shoulder grew stronger with every second he stood there - and became almost unbearable when he saw the reflection of her in nothing but her underwear being reflected in the glass cabinet. He swallowed hard. Even though he couldn't see much of her he couldn't help staring at what he saw.

"I'm done." she grumbled. "And I'll be a good girl and lay down now."

"Good." he took a deep breath before he turned around to smile at her. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No." she replied and pulled the blanket up. "Well, maybe you could get me a book."

"You should rest." Derek repeated.

"I'm not even tired." Penelope complained. "I can't just lay here and do nothing. Why can't I at least read a little?" This was really getting worse.

"Because I want you to close your eyes and at least try to sleep." he insisted.

"Look, I can't sleep, okay." she sighed. "I'm an insomniac, I won't sleep unless I'm really tired. And at the moment I'm not even a bit tired. So unless you have some really heavy sleeping pills for me, I'm not going to sleep anytime soon."

Derek frowned. Then he smiled and started to strip down to his boxers.

"What are you doing?" Penelope shrieked and almost jumped out of her bed.

Smiling he laid down next to her and shrugged. "I had a girlfriend in college who was an insomniac. She said the only time she could fall asleep was when someone held her."

Before Penelope could say anything to that Derek had wrapped his arms around her and gently pulled her down to him. She remained stiff for a moment. This was just too... weird. Penelope couldn't think of another word to describe the situation.

But after a few seconds, the nearness of his body next to her and the warmth his embrace delivered made her relax. Penelope placed her head on his chest and smiled to herself. After all, things could have been much worse.

In fact, it was getting better every second. Sighing happily Penelope snuggled up as close against this chocolate God in her bed as possible and closed her eyes. Only a few seconds later she was fast asleep hoping that he would never stop treating her like that.