DRABBLE: Heart Went Flip

[blastellanos]

Title: Heart Went Flip

Author: dinahqueen

Rating: G

Word Count: 393

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's Notes: Number 4 in the 20 ships drabble series.

For the fifth time in the last ten minutes, Penelope’s fingers reached out to brush over the yellow petals of the rose that was centered in the arrangement. Complemented by the gold and brown flecked alstroemeria and the vivid purple lisianthus and several smaller roses; padded out with the bells of Ireland, which cascaded down over the vase. It was gorgeous. She’d set the card up against her keyboard, glancing down at it every few minutes.

There was the MP3 player too; metallic pink and engraved with her name. Both were nice and thoughtful. Gideon hadn’t needed to do either. It made her feel appreciated. It made her feel like… well, that Gideon might like her a little. She didn’t flirt with him really at all. It wasn’t easy to talk to him like it was to Morgan. Or even Hotch, really. And different from why it wasn’t easy to flirt with Reid.

Her fingers traced over the fancy lettering on the engraving as she plugged it in to add music to it.

Penelope knew things. She had access to information that no one else had;  information dating years and years back. And as she looked at the flowers and the iPod, she felt something strange clench in her chest, making her heart flutter a little. What if it was a sign? Surely just the flowers would have been enough… but he’d gone beyond the call of duty towards making her feel better.

And that was… something Penelope wasn’t used to, if she really thought about it. She knew Gideon was unmarried and maybe there was… she hadn’t specifically ever thought about him like that, being her superior, but there was an appeal. He was intelligent, well-read, and attractive in a non-traditional way. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea.

So, in honor of that, she added Bette Middler’s cover of In the Mood as the first song on her new playlist. She turned it on, listening to it through tinny ear phones with a smile on her face.

Penelope waffled quite a bit, but at the end of the day, she sent Gideon a text message asking him for coffee. He was waiting for her outside the door.

“I’d love to,” Gideon said and she shut the door to her computer room, and happily went with him.