Love and prejudice by little

Love and prejudice by little_profiler

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Title: Fighting â€“ Part 1
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Morgan/Garcia
Prompt for 30 forbidden fruits: #6 White
Rating: T
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 17/? of the â€˜Love and prejudiceâ€™-series.
warnings: none

AN: Okay, Iâ€™m still trying to get better. :) And Iâ€™m still writing. So donâ€™t worry, eventually, there will be updates on everything I started â€“ and Iâ€™m not giving up hope that eventually Iâ€™ll be able to finish all the stories I started.
For the time being, my life is okay. At least, it doesnâ€™t seem so messed up anymore. Or maybe thatâ€™s just because Iâ€™m on holiday right now, getting a break from all this. LOL
Now, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It might raise a few questions, but they will be answered later, I promise.

He felt like someone was sitting on his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. He knew he had seen his Baby Girl, he had felt her, smelled her unique scentâ€¦ But now, she was gone, and he knew he needed her now more than ever.

He felt hands grabbing him, pulling at him, pushing him. He wanted to fight them, but he wasnâ€™t able to move even a single finger. Had they tied him to the bed? Why on earth would they do that? And who were they in the first place?

He remembered that the UNSUB had shot him. He remembered the feeling that someone had punched him in the stomach. He remembered his Baby Girl leaning over him, and then darkness.

Where was she now? Why wasnâ€™t she with him anymore? And where was he?

Was he dead? Was that what it felt like to die? Heâ€™d always thought there was a white light and nothing but happiness. Heâ€™d imagined seeing his father again â€“ and he had imagined it to be far in the future, and not so early in his life.

If this really was the end, he was glad that he had at least had the guts to tell Penelope how he really felt about her. Even though she had declined, he would have always regretted it if he had never told her.

Somewhere far away, he heard muffled voices, but was unable to understand what they were saying. Were they calling him? Were they talking to him? He couldnâ€™t even tell if the voices were male or female.
He would regret never being able to see her smile, though, or hear her voice, her laughter. Asking for his transfer to another unit had been a bad idea. But that didnâ€™t matter anymore, did it?

The room around him â€“ was he even in a room? â€“ turned white, and then black again. He was probably slipping in and out of consciousness. Penelope had told him about such an experience after she had been shot.

Why on earth had the guy being able to shoot him at all? He had worn the vest; and the bullet had hit the vest, he was sure about that. Or maybe it had gone right through the vest. Armor piercing bullets would explain a lot.

Damn, he should have waited for backup! Hotch had told him to wait. He would surely turn up the heat on Derek if he survived this. If.

He heard the muffled voices again, and the room covered in white again, a bright light blinding him. Was he drifting back to consciousness? That meant he wasnâ€™t dead, right?

He wasnâ€™t going to die, not now, not here, not today. He wanted to see his Baby Girl again, wanted to tell her again how much she meant to him â€“ and that he understood if she couldnâ€™t be with him and wouldnâ€™t leave Kevin.

He would understand, and he would try his best to be her friend, whenever she needed him. She was still his best friend, after all. Why should there be no way to go back to that? He would ask Hotch to cancel his transfer, and he would talk to Penelope.

No, he wasnâ€™t going to die today. There was so much he hadnâ€™t done yet and still wanted to do. He needed to tell his mom and sisters how much they meant to him, how grateful he was to be a part of the Morgan family. And he needed to make up with his Baby Girl. She was his God-given solace, and he wanted things to stay that way.

He tried to speak, but wasnâ€™t able to. Something was plugging his mouth. It was almost certainly a tube providing him with oxygen. Wasnâ€™t he able to breathe on his own anymore? Well, not if he was in surgery.
If he was, why hadnâ€™t they sedated him? Had there been no time for that? Was his condition so critical that they didnâ€™t take the time? Or didnâ€™t they think it was necessary? He wasnâ€™t a doctor, but maybe, if the injury was bad enough, they didnâ€™t need to sedate someone, because they would be unconscious most of the time anyway.

He didnâ€™t feel any pain, so maybe he was sedated, and whatever he thought he was experiencing was just him dreaming because of the sedative. But where had the voices heâ€™d heard come from?
If he wasnâ€™t dying, and wasnâ€™t conscious, either, what was going on here?

For some reason, he had always thought that in a moment like this, his whole life would pass before his eyes. But all he could really think of, really focus on, was Penelope. The only moments he was reliving were the moments heâ€™d spent with her.

How much he would miss her, miss hearing her voice calling him pet names, miss hearing her laughterâ€¦

How much he would regret that he had never introduced her to his family. They would have loved her, he was sure of that.

He couldnâ€™t just leave her like that, not if so many things were left unsaid or undone. He had to survive, for her.

Would she mourn over his death? She surely would. He remembered how upset sheâ€™d been when sheâ€™d thought he had been killed in an explosion â€“ twice. How she had thrown herself into his arms the moment theyâ€™d met again â€“ relieved to see him alive and telling him not to ever do that to her again.

He had done it again, though. He needed to survive to tell her that he had never meant to hurt her â€“ to apologize and to soothe her and make it all betterâ€¦ if she still let him.

He remembered how he had felt after his Baby Girl had been shot, when he had to see her go through so much pain. He had felt helpless, and had cursed himself for not being there when Battle had attacked her. He had been beside himself with anger, and crazed with fear of losing her.

Would she feel the same now that he was the one in surgery? She shouldnâ€™t have to go through this, feeling what he had felt, maybe even blaming herself for it. He needed to survive, if only to tell her that this wasnâ€™t her fault.

He felt an invisible power pulling him back into darkness, but this time, he fought it as hard as he could. He wouldnâ€™t leave his Baby Girl just like that. And yes, she was still his Baby Girl, whether she had rejected him or not, whether she wanted to be his Baby Girl or not. That was what she was and always would be.

She was his rock, his God-given solace, and he wouldnâ€™t give up on her without a fight. If she was right and everything happened for a reason, what on earth was the reason for all that?!

If he hadnâ€™t lost his father so early, he would never have met Buford. If he had never met Buford, he wouldnâ€™t have joined the police, and then the BAU to fight people like him. If he had never joined the BAU, he would never have met Penelope and fallen in love with her. The only woman heâ€™d ever truly loved. The only woman whoâ€™d ever rejected him.

If heâ€™d had to go through the abuse as a teenager just to meet her, why was God taking all that away from him now? Why did he let Penelope fall in love with someone else?

Because you never made a move on her, he heard a voice say in his head. She needed to move on. She deserves to be happy. Heâ€™d had so many chances to tell her how he really felt about her, but heâ€™d never dared. He had learned not to trust people â€“ especially not those he loved â€“ because it was possible that they would hurt him in the cruelest of ways.

He had always trusted her, though apparently not enough to act on his feelings. And now it was too late. There was no turning back.

But did that mean that he had to leave her? Okay, he had wanted to leave the unit, but this was a bit overdone. There was no way to ever see her again â€“ and he knew he couldnâ€™t handle that. Leaving the unit had really been a bad idea. He couldnâ€™t live without her.

Was that the reason for all this? To make him realize that he couldnâ€™t live without her? Hadnâ€™t there been an easier way to achieve that, something less painful?

Okay, he certainly deserved it for everything he had done wrong in his life. Was that the reason? To make him aware of what he had done to her?

â€œOkay,â€ he thought, hoping God heard him. â€œI got your point.â€ He would apologize to his Baby Girl for hurting her so much, for telling her how he felt about her, even though he knew she was with someone else.

He would tell her that he accepted her decision, that he would never address the matter again, but that he hoped they could still be friends. He would tell her that he couldnâ€™t imagine a single day without her and that he wouldnâ€™t leave the unit.

He would tell her that he wanted her to be happy, and then he would let her go. He had missed his chance, and he knew that. Now, he had to live with it, and he would. He would leave her alone and be grateful if she could still let him be her friend.

Once again, he heard muffled voices around him. Was he in the hospital? Was he already in surgery? The voices sounded less hectic than a few minutes before â€“ or had it been hours? Was that a good sign?

Dying really wasnâ€™t as impressive an experience as people used to tell others after a NDE. It meant pain, a lot of it, and even more confusion. There was no white light, no peacefulness, no long gone ancestors waiting for him. There wasnâ€™t even the memory of his whole life passing before his eyes.

For Derek, there was only pain. Not only the physical pain from the shooting, but also the pain over the possibility of losing everything he had. And that everything was his Baby Girl. He didnâ€™t want to leave her. He couldnâ€™t. He wouldnâ€™t.

For Derek, the near death experience was only a struggle to stay in this world. Maybe that was why there were none of the nice feelings people always described. He didnâ€™t want them. He didnâ€™t want to be ready to move to the other side. He didnâ€™t want to feel happy while leaving this world. In fact, he just fucking didnâ€™t want to leave.

He would stay. No matter how hard God tried to keep him away from his Baby Girl, he would stay with her. He wouldnâ€™t leave her. Maybe God was almighty, but even He was powerless before the force that tied him to Penelope, his Baby Girl.

Baby Girl.

He clung to the thought of her, the memory of her voice, her smile, her scentâ€¦ The memory of the feeling of her body against his when he held her. He wouldnâ€™t leave her. She was his rock, she was his anchor, and she was what would keep him here. Even God wasnâ€™t able to break this bond between them.

Baby Girl.

The voices around him became clearer, louder. He understood a few words. Something about severe blood loss and a bullet still lodged in his body. He heard something about risks, and the possibility of being paralyzed from the operation.

He didnâ€™t care. At the moment, he just wanted to survive. Penelope didnâ€™t want to be with him, so he didnâ€™t need to worry if she would want him when he was paralyzed. She didnâ€™t want him at all, but he still wanted her. He still wanted to be with her, and that thought was enough to draw him back out of the darkness around him into the bright light of the OR.

He heard voices calling out that he was waking up. He had made it; he was alive. Death, or God, or whoever had been pulling him towards darkness wouldnâ€™t get him. Penelope had saved him â€“ once again.

â€œBaby Girl,â€ he burbled, before hands pulled at him, placing something over his mouth, and he was drawn back to unconsciousness.

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Love and prejudice by little_profiler

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