The first time Luke Alvez almost pressed his lips to Penelope Garcia's was in the middle of a hospital waiting room. The thought struck him as odd, but not unwelcome, as he watched her pace back and forth in front of him. He had tried several times to get the panicking woman to sit down beside him, and relax, telling her again that Emily was going to be okay. Each time he opened his mouth to speak to the technical analyst she would shoot him a glare, silencing him with her eyes, and he would sit back down to listen to her monologue.

In this moment he realizes that his head is pounding and her incessant chatter, along with the fluorescent overhead lights, and the constant click of her heels against the floor isn't making anything better. He can feel the blood drying on the side of his face, he can feel the dirt underneath his fingernails, and he can feel the pulse of the need to kiss her coursing through his veins. When he adjusts himself in the chair he lets out a low groan, his breath hitching, and finds it extremely hard to breathe from the impact of the tackle the UnSub had hit him with earlier in the day.

When she begins to sob, her body pausing on the threshold between the waiting room and the hallway, he ignores the screaming protest of his ribs and crosses the room in large strides to stand behind her. Holding his ribs with his right hand he reaches out to spin her around, pulling her eyes from the doorway that Emily had disappeared into hours ago. He realizes that she has been speaking to him, but instead of listening to her words, his eyes are trained on the delicate lines of her mouth as it moves in front of him.

Luke reaches up to cup her tear stained face between his hands, notating exactly how dirty they are against her pale skin. He watches as Penelope stops talking, instead connecting her eyes with his and letting her body relax under his gaze. It's at this moment that he can feel the electricity humming through her body as he licks his lips. He proceeds to watch the blonde woman through heavy eyelids as her eyes flutter shut. She angles her face towards him, giving him silent permission to capture her lips.

Luke trails his thumbs across her cheeks, brushing away the tear tracks before he lets his thumb trace over her bottom lip, a shiver emanating from the woman as he does, and he finds that he wants nothing more than to kiss her red lips in this moment. If only, for the sheer reason, that she would stay quiet until his headache decimated. He takes a deep breath, deciding that when he does kiss Penelope Garcia it wasn't going to be in a hospital waiting room. Instead of pressing his lips to hers in the desperate fashion that has been plaguing his mind, he wraps the smaller woman into his arms, pressing her head tightly into his chest with the back of his hands.

Her sobs echo around the rest of the patrons in the waiting room, each ignoring the two agents currently locked in an embrace as they waited for news of their Unit Chief. Luke knows that he would have kissed her in that moment, but would it have been fair to either of them? No, he tells himself as he presses the woman's head deeper into his kevlar vest, realizing the damage that kissing her in this moment would have done to her psyche. Luke feels a longing to make everything better for Penelope, wanting nothing more than to shoulder the pain she was currently experiencing, and he does so by running his hands up and down her back. Whispering soothing words to the blonde woman in Spanish, praying silently for her tears to die down, if not for her then surely, for his pounding headache.

—

The second time Luke Alvez feels an unprecedented desire to kiss Penelope Garcia is after a particularly difficult case. Most of the other members of the team had returned home, wanting to be with their families, but by some careful manipulating both he and the aforementioned woman had ended up at O'Keefe's, each knocking back drinks as they conversed about the horrors of the case. He had never felt such a surge of jealousy and anger course through his body as he watched the technical analyst flirt shamelessly with a blonde man at the bar.

It's not the fact that she doesn't look receptive to the attention she was currently receiving from the man, and it's not even because she's certainly never giggled at him that way, or run her hand down his arm while smiling at him and batting her beautiful eyelashes. The FBI agent finds himself gripping his bottle of beer in his right hand and strolling up to the couple at the bar, sliding his arm around her shoulder and pulling her tight against his chest with a condescending smile at the blonde man. Luke tilts his bottle towards the man in greeting, letting his eyes rove him disapprovingly.The man, who Luke finds irritating, takes no notice of the addition to his conversation and continues flirting with Penelope.

Luke turns his head, running his nose against the woman's temple and watches as her eyes close at the contact of his skin against hers. He finds that his heart is beating erratically against his chest and if he takes too deep of an inhale he can smell the rose petals of her perfume against the pulse point on her throat. He groans, wanting nothing more than to press his lips to the expanse of skin.

"Luke, this is Adam," the woman says, turning to introduce her co-worker to the blonde man.

"Don't care," Luke replies as he picks up her drink and guides her away from the bar and into the throng of people gyrating to a song he's not entirely familiar with. He vaguely remembers catching the beat from the song as he changed the radio station one afternoon. He pulls the woman into his chest, running his right hand down her face and watches her as she leans into his palm.

"Are you going to kiss me or not?" the woman says, her voice carrying to his hearts on an upswing of the beat. Luke finds himself nodding and watching as she once again tilts her head towards his face, parting her lips, and waiting patiently for him to make the final move.

Yes, Luke would love to capture her pretty red lips with his own, kissing her further into a drunken stupor, but would it be fair for him to do so out of jealousy and anger. No, he doesn't think so as he leans his forehead against hers. They remain still amongst the dancing people. He feels that he should feel guilty for disappointing her as he feels her shoulders sagging underneath his arms, but he isn't guilty at all.

—

The third time Luke Alvez almost kisses Penelope Garcia is after he walks into the conference room late on a rainy day in October to a loud chorus of 'Surprise!' from the other team members. He's shocked to say the least, that anybody would even remember his birthday, let alone the people he spends five hundred and sixty hours a year with. He lets his eyes connect with hers across the room as she smiles widely at him with a shrug of her shoulders and a wink. He walks over to her clutching a cupcake in his hands, offering it to the woman with a lazy grin.

"You remembered my birthday?" He asks, reaching out to swipe a bit of the frosting from the top of the cupcake before she bit into it.

"I remember everybody's birthday, Alvez." She replies while reaching up to brush a piece of lint off of his shoulder, the touch sending a ripple through his body. Reaching up he grips her hand in his own, pulling it to his face and leaning into her palm.

"Thank you," the man whispers to her as he pulls her into a hug, the cupcake is forgotten as it tumbles to the floor devoid of any frosting. He feels her relax in his embrace and trails his hand to the back of her head, holding her in place for a while longer. Realizing that he does in fact, love the way she fits into his embrace.

Pulling back from the embrace he stares down at her lips, taking in the berry shade and the curve of her top lip when she smiles up at him. His heart soars in this moment as she reaches up to tangle her fingers in the back of his hair and pull his face down to hers. It doesn't escape him that while he was waiting for the perfect time to kiss her, she had been waiting for the same moment as he smiles, his tongue darting out to wet his lips in anticipation.

A beeping interrupts the slow descent of his lips to hers and they both let out an audible groan, as they both whisper:

"We have a case." He watches as Penelope turns to the monitor, reaching out to grasp the remote as he slides into a chair, his face lingering on the Happy Birthday balloon sitting in the middle of the table.

—

It was an exceptionally tiring day when he pulled his gun and trained it just slightly to the left of Penelope Garcia's head outside of the Tempe Police Department in the state of Arizona. It was an exceptionally tiring day when they finally realized that the UnSub they had been searching for had spent the day chasing himself down with the technical analyst. It was an exceptionally tiring day when he had received the distress text message from the woman who made his heart beat wildly against his ribcage. He will never forget the fear that coursed through his body as his blood ran cold from the text message.

I love you, James. I will miss you beside me tonight, chasing these UnSubs is hard work, and I wish that you were close.

At first, the message was strange until he pieced it together, turning the SUV back to the police department and cutting the man off as he walked Penelope out of the precinct at gunpoint. It was taking everything in Luke's power to not look into the eyes of the woman, choosing instead to keep his focus on the man who held her throat in his arms. He looks over at JJ, who shakes her head signaling that she doesn't have a clear shot at the man either.

"James, you don't want to do this, she's an FBI agent," Luke says, surprised at how calm he sounded, realizing that he flinched ever so slightly when Penelope let out a squeak.

"I'm not going to prison." the man replies, his eyes flickering wildly around him, and Luke watches fearfully as his grip tightens around Penelope's throat. He finds that he wants to close his eyes and breathe deeply, finds that he wants to blink rapidly until Penelope is safe and back in his arms, but he remains focused on his target. Luke can feel the wind shifting around him, trying to judge if he can safely shoot the man without harming a single hair on her perfect head. It's the click of a safety unlocking that causes his heart to flip into overdrive, moving slightly to the left in order to give himself a clearer shot.

"Don't come any closer, or else I will shoot her." James continues to say pressing the gun deeper into the chin of the woman Luke realizes he cannot live without.

"Put the gun down and step away from the woman," Luke says, calmly and clearly enunciating the words, his finger unlocking the safety on his own gun. He moves his finger over the trigger watching as James continues to dig the gun deeper into her chin. The man flickers his eyes to JJ again who shakes her head again and Luke inhales deeply, holding his breath and focuses on his target.

"No!" James shouts his finger flying to the trigger of his gun at the same time as Luke, a shot ringing out between the four of them.

When Luke Alvez finally does kiss Penelope Garcia it's out of sheer relief at the fact that she is still alive. He rushes forward and grips her face between his trembling hands after holstering his gun and presses his lips to her in hurried motions. Luke presses her face closer to his, his hands slipping on the blood coating her blonde strands, but he doesn't care in that moment. He keeps his lips on hers for as long as he can, listening to the sirens around them, listening to the people running out of the building, listening to his team calling his name. When Luke Alvez finally does pull away from Penelope Garcia, he grips her closer into his body holding her shaking frame within his arms as she lets out a gut-wrenching sob.

"I've got you, Garcia." He whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead and letting out a shaky breath against her skin. "You're safe."