Who: Derek Morgan derekmorgan & Penelope Garcia theblackqueen What: Arrival When: Saturday, May 25, late evening Where: Kate Danver's Pink VW Bug outside Crawdaddy Music Rating: Reader Discretion is Advised Warnings: Discussion of major character death and sadness/depression as well as possible mentions of icky things related to episodes of Criminal Minds. Status: Closed/Incomplete; to be finished in comments
~*~
There were a lot of days when Penelope Garcia gave serious thought to the notion of quitting her job with the FBI. The things she saw, the horrors she encountered, seeing the people she loved in constant danger, it was overwhelming and there were too many days when she felt like she couldn’t handle it. Something kept her going, kept bringing her back to Quantico, kept her in front of her screens, typing furiously, trying to find bad guys so her team, her family, could stop them. She was proud of the work they did, proud that they did manage to put away so many monsters, but still hated knowing what evil lurks in the hearts of her fellow man.
Today was different. Today, Penelope felt like a piece of her own heart was being ripped out and she wasn’t sure she could remember a time when she wasn’t crying. As much as she wanted to scream and rage and throw her badge at Hotch and tell him she was done, she knew that wouldn’t bring Emily back. And she wouldn’t dishonor her friend, her sister, by giving up on the work that meant so much to her.
Bleary-eyed, she followed Derek to his car, too sad to even make inappropriate comments about his very fine behind. All she wanted to do was curl up under a blanket with a cup of tea and shut out the rest of the world. Even Derek’s presence couldn’t provide solace on a day like this.
She got in the car and reached for her seat belt before blinking a few times. Something wasn’t right. She wiped her eyes, trying to clear away the tears and then turned towards the driver’s seat. “Did we get in the wrong car?” she asked.
Derek felt tired down to the marrow of his bones. His shoulders were tight enough to make him worry he's dislocate one carrying the coffin -Emily. Emily was in the coffin and Derek had carried her.- only he'd made it through without stumbling or fumbling either one. It felt as if all the tears in the world were being shed in the cemetery for his fallen friend and yet it still wasn't enough somehow. There was something missing in the mourning.
It took him until they were walking back to the car for the realization the thing missing? That had been Emily. Derek had been looking for her in the faces in the crowd. The fact she was the one they were gathered together to bid farewell simply wouldn't settle into his mind as a known piece of information. He wondered if this was how Reid felt when he was trying to remember something he'd heard instead of read: all the knowledge he'd ever gathered in his life flashing behind his eyes yet he still couldn't pull the piece he needed out of the mix.
"No. We definitely did not get into the wrong car. We are in the wrong car, but we didn't get into it."
Trying to stretch his legs in front of him, Derek grunted as the dash ground into his knees, "I'm pretty sure we're in a Beetle. Do you know anyone who drives a Beetle? A---pink one?"
The color was hard to mistake from the view out the windows. Under other circumstances, Derek could have pictured the car belonging to Penelope. She was the kind of woman who could handle a car with as much attitude on display as this one had.
“I… no, I do not know anyone who drives a car like this.” Penelope was digging the color though. It was a bold choice and she applauded whoever owned the vehicle.
That was a question that could wait. She had a far more pressing one. “Derek? How did we end up in this car when we were getting into your SUV?” she asked. It was like they’d slipped through some kind of dimensional vortex or something. Did his car get turned into a portkey? As cool as it would be to learn that Harry Potter magic was real, Garcia wasn’t sure how she’d feel about being exposed to it against her will.
“More importantly, if we get out of the car, will we still be in the cemetery?” Because looking out the window, it did not look like that’s where they were which made this whole thing that much weirder.
Derek had been thinking the same thing as he'd taken in their surroundings. They weren't in the cemetery. That much he was certain of---and he didn't recognize the parking space the car was in either. It was impossible to imagine how they could have been transported from his very regular, very government-issued SUV, to a very pink Volkswagen Beetle, but it had happened.
Somehow.
"Baby Girl, you better hold onto your hat. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Opening the door, Derek squeezed himself out of the tiny car, stretching to relieve the tension still locking his joints. The temperature was different as well as their surroundings. Some deep breaths proved to Derek he wasn't being dosed with some kind of hallucinogenic gas; a shake of his hands sent tingles through his arms which told him he wasn't asleep either.
"This is no dream. We aren't being gassed. I can also rule out the team Punk'ing us. No way anyone is in the mood for that after Emily's---service. Any ideas, PG? I think I'm fresh out."
Garcia managed to climb, less than gracefully, out of the car. It was a good thing her dress wasn’t inappropriately short. This was definitely not Virginia and that couldn’t mean anything good. She walked around the small car to stand next to Derek, feeling safer having him close.
“In my dreams, you’re usually wearing less clothes,” she quipped reflexively. It was the first time since losing Emily that she’d made a joke and she felt guilty as soon as the words slipped out. After a moment, she realized that it was silly to feel guilty. Emily wouldn’t want things to change between Garcia and Morgan. And she wouldn’t want her friends to give up on life.
She opened her purse and fished out her phone. “Let’s see what the internet says,” she said, tapping the screen and flipping through the screens. After a minute, she frowned. “I can’t access anything.”
"What do you mean you can't access anything? Do you mean there's no service like we're in a dead zone or do you mean there's something hinky going on here other than the fact we're here?"
The idea of Garcia being disconnected from her vast wealth of electronic knowledge was scarier than the idea they'd been transported instantly across time and space. Information and Garcia went hand-in-hand in Derek's mind; there were never spots which were too tight as long as he had her intel to back up his plays. If they were cut off from their team and she was cut off from her servers, what did that leave them with?
Reaching under his jacket, Derek retrieved his service weapon, checked the magazine, the safety, and the firing mechanism. Everything worked as expected. There was no signs his gun had been tampered with at all. He put it back into the holster and retrieved his own cell phone, not entirely surprised to see he had nothing more than a black screen.
"Mine's dead. I don't think it has anything to do with our situation though. Pretty sure I just forgot to charge it. Any technological wizardry in that big, beautiful brain of yours which could cause all this? You get me something to work with and I'll remind you it seems we've both been sent on vacation without our luggage. That means the only clothes I've got to wear? I'm wearing."
“I mean hinky is putting it mildly,” Garcia said, her frown deepening as she tried to access any of her online accounts, even the ones that weren’t connected to the government. Not being able to connect to the deep databases that she used daily wasn’t as concerning. Not being able to access Twitter, on the other hand, was a definite problem.
The idea that Derek didn’t have other clothes would be a lot more appealing if they knew what was going on. She pulled up a Google search and her eyes got very wide as she leaned against the car for support.
Knowing Derek was armed made her feel a little better, even though she still wasn’t a huge fan of guns. Though they were in uncharted waters here and she wasn’t sure a gun was going to make any difference. “According to Google, today is Saturday, May 25th, 2019. 2019. I have no explanation for that except that someone turned your SUV into a time machine.”
She glanced around. “One that also moved us through space, since this is not DC.” A quick Google search for a nearby business name didn’t help clear that up any. “In fact, the top hit for Crawdaddy Music says it’s in a town called Madison Valley, Indiana.” That was the name of the shop they were standing in front of. “How did we get to Indiana? In 2019?”
And where was Reid when they needed him?
Derek Morgan didn't believe in time travel or teleportation or any of that other science fiction garbage Reid was into. He believed in reality as it was presented by scientists. No one outside of conspiracy theorists believed in what Garcia was talking about. They were on something. Dosed. No one had gotten close to them at the funeral other than their own people. They hadn't eaten or drank anything strange. Derek couldn't remember being sprayed with anything either or getting jabbed with a needle, but they had to have been dosed.
"We've been dosed. Someone got to us. I don't know who. I don't know when. I do know it has to have happened that way."
There was no such thing as time travel and there was nothing in Indiana important enough to warrant the combined skills of Morgan and Garcia.
"Someone's coming. Get behind me. I don't know what's going on, but I do know they are not taking us any further than this right here. Not us. Not today. No way."
Derek drew his gun as the man reached them to say, "Hello! I'm from the Welcoming Committee---"
That was when Derek held up a hand to suggest he stop talking, "You want to talk to us about what is happening. Now. Before my trigger finger gets itchy."
The last thing they needed was Derek getting trigger happy and Penelope put her hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, hero. The guy looks like he’s about to wet his pants.” She waited until he lowered his gun to step next to him and address the man who approached.
“Can you tell us what’s going on?” she asked. She listened with growing skepticism to his explanation that they’d been brought to some alternate universe in Indiana, a town that was surrounded by an invisible dome, and they were stuck here until whatever mysterious force brought them here decided to send them back.
She was wary when he offered them large envelopes, but took them both, peering inside to make sure they didn’t have anything dangerous inside. To her untrained eye, everything looked normal, but she suspected Derek would want to examine it too. The man was clearly anxious to get away from them, not that she could blame him.
Once he ran off, she opened one of the envelopes and took out the phone. “Woah, this is fancy,” she said. “Like, really good stuff.” Better than anything she had, which was really saying something. She found the network that the man mentioned and did a couple of keyword searches.
“Derek, look. We were both here before. So were Emily and Reid.”