Chapter Text
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Title: No more sweets
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Morgan/Garcia
Prompt for 30 sweets: #5 One chocolate cake please
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Neither the show nor the characters belong to me, they belong to CBS. Nonetheless, I love to borrow them from time to time.
Summary: Part 1/? of the ‘No more sweets’ series. A nasty comment makes Garcia go on a diet.
warnings: none
She was in an exceptionally good mood today. After all, it was her birthday and this year her team, her elective affinity, wasn’t on a case out of town. They were planning on having a small breakfast together and Penelope wanted to bring a cake, a chocolate cake because she knew it was Derek’s favorite.
And Derek himself would take her out for dinner. Not that it was very special for them to go out but for this one day she could at least pretend that it might be a date. Even though she knew that it wasn’t.
So she almost floated into the bakery and smiled at the man behind the counter. “I’d like to have a chocolate cake, please.” she told him happily.
“She looks like that’s her daily breakfast.” a skinny girl drinking coffee at a nearby table said to her even skinnier friend.
“Well, maybe she doesn’t care about her appearance.” the other girl giggled. “Maybe she’s already married or something.”
“Wow, he must be really ugly – or blind.” the first girl giggled.
“Or she’s rich.” the second girl shrugged.
Eyeing Penelope up the first girl grimaced: “A rich girl wouldn’t dress like THAT!”
Penelope pretended not to hear them. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to comments like that. But it still hurt, especially on a day like this. And she immediately knew that she wouldn’t eat a piece of the chocolate cake – and if she did she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was why Derek never asked her out, why he wasn’t interested in her that way, maybe that was why they’d never be more than friends.
She forced herself to smile at the man behind the counter, thanked him and left as fast as she could – but not fast enough to hear some other nasty comments that made tears spring to her eyes.
She made it to her car before she started sobbing, but it only took a moment and she had collected herself again. This was her birthday, her team was around to celebrate with her and Derek was taking her out tonight. And she would not let some nasty chicks get her down today! So she took a deep breath and headed for the bureau.
“Good morning, birthday girl.” Derek greeted happily as he walked into her office and reached for her hands to pull her into a tight embrace.
“I’ll show you a good morning, hot stuff.” Penelope smiled as she leaned into his embrace and closed her eyes.
Derek frowned and lifted her head to make her look at him: “Are you alright, honey?”
“Of course, I am.” she put him off. “It’s my birthday. When do we start breakfast?”
“Don’t evade my question, girl!” Derek frowned, his thumb brushed tenderly over the trail her tears had left on her cheeks. “What’s wrong with you, mama? You’ve been crying.”
“It’s nothing.” she objected.
Derek just raised an eyebrow at her.
Penelope sighed: “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Right now I want some hugs and a lot of presents.”
“Okay.” he gave a small laugh and then kissed the top of her nose. “I can at least guarantee for the first.” Chuckling Derek wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her into the meeting room.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” everyone shouted when Penelope and Derek entered the room. And then everyone hugged her, even Rossi and Hotch. They just seemed to know that she really needed that today.
The table was loaded with bread, jam, cheese and lots of fruits. It looked like they’d ordered a catering service to decorate everything. “Oh, you really surpassed yourself.”
“This was JJ’s idea.” Emily announced.
“But Hotch and Rossi helped me set the table.” she grinned at her bosses.
Penelope felt new tears spring to her eyes. She couldn’t remember when the last time someone had made so much effort for her.
“Alright, let’s eat, I’m starving!” Reid announced to lighten the mood – and to end the somewhat uncomfortable silence that had started filling the room.
“That’s a great idea.” Derek agreed. “I know that there’s a chocolate cake waiting for me.”
“Hey, you’re not the one having birthday.” JJ scolded.
“Nope, but I still get presents.” Derek grinned at JJ and then waggled his eyebrows at Penelope who sat down next to him. “Thanks to my girl who’s spoiling me senseless.”
“Anything for you, my chocolate Adonis.” she flirted back.
JJ rolled her eyes as she sat down opposite her flirting coworkers. “Yeah, all he needs is more self-confidence.”
“No, I just need as much TLC as I can get.” he chuckled.
Reid stopped in the middle of his attempt to shove a huge piece of cake into his mouth. “TLC?” he raised his eyebrows at his coworkers.
Penelope giggled and reached out to ruffle his hair. “Tender loving care, sweet pea. Something you could definitely use, too.”
The young agent’s cheeks turned a nice shade of pink causing the three girls to giggle.
“Hey, hey, hey! Do I need to be jealous?” Derek teased making Reid blush even more.
“You know I have a big heart.” Penelope winked at him.
“Yeah, but still I’d rather all of it belonged to me.” he mock-pouted.
Penelope just shrugged: “Well then, stud muffin, try and win it!”
He just smiled at her. She so had no idea that he already had made up his mind about the perfect plan on how to do so.