Disclaimer: I own nothing.

So, like when I was writing "Obsession" and "Come Back To Me" struck me, this one has struck me while in the middle of "Hate To Love You." I had to get it started because it was bugging me to know end, so here it is. Don't hate me for the nature of this story in the beginning. The inspiration for the nature of the relationship was a movie called "The Possession." Strictly the relationship portion…this story has nothing whatsoever to do with possession or exorcism. Essentially, think my two-shot "We're 10,000 Miles Apart" with a longer storyline.

"Daddy, are you going to live in this apartment forever?"

Derek looked up from where he was cooking at the stove at his seven year old daughter, Soraya. She was sitting at the small table in the equally small apartment kitchen where he was living. Smiling at her, he shook his head and kept stirring the noodles he was boiling. "No, sweetie," he assured her. "You know that I'm looking for a house. We'll be able to move in as soon as we do."

Soraya shook her head. "No, Daddy," she scolded. "I mean when are you coming home? Like, where Mom is?"

Sighing, Derek turned the burner off on the stove and went to kneel in front of his daughter, taking both of her hands. "Raya, honey, you know that I'm not coming home. Your Mom and I are separated. We have been for six months. I'm not coming home." The words fell heavily from his mouth and he felt like he had a ton of bricks in his throat. He hated it, but it was his current reality.

"Dad," his sixteen year old daughter, Tala said, coming into the kitchen, "we really want you to come home. I hate Kyle. He sucks and he tells me that girls who wear black clothing don't get guys because it makes them look unappealing. I don't even wear black all that much, just sometimes!" She pulled out one of the chairs and slammed herself down into it. "I'm not lying. I hate him!"

A flash of anger ran through Derek and he rubbed his face. The man who told his daughter she wasn't getting a boyfriend because she wore black occasionally was definitely going to get a talking to. He couldn't believe Penelope was allowing her boyfriend of only a month to say things like that to their child. With a hard voice, he said, "I'll be talking to your mother about him. That's a promise." Pulling Soraya into a hug, he kissed her forehead. "Mac 'n' cheese is done," he said. "Can one of you go get Lindy?"

"Right here, Dad," thirteen year old, Lindy called as she entered the kitchen, a copy of The Kite Runner in tow. There were tears swimming on the surface of her eyes.

Derek scrunched his brow with concern. "Lindy, baby, what's wrong?" he asked, about ready to go to her side.

Sniffling, she murmured, "It's just the book." She held the book up for him to see. "It's really sad."

Breathing with relief, he smirked at her and said, "Honey, maybe you should give that book a break. This is the second time in less than two days that it's made you cry."

Sitting down at the table, she put the book down gently and nodded. She wiped her eyes. "Okay," she whispered. "Can we eat?"

Derek smiled. "Of course, sweetheart," he said.

When he brought the food over to the table, Soraya chirped, "Daddy, I think Mom misses you."

Tala rolled her eyes. She may have been nine years older than her little sister, but she found her consistent talk of how much their mother missed their father to be exhausting. "Soraya," she snapped. "Mom doesn't miss Dad. She kicked him out and shacked up with freakin' Kyle. This is her fault!"

"Tala Jennifer Morgan!" Derek growled. "Stop it right now. You're upsetting your sister. Your mother and I agreed to this separation. If you want to blame someone, blame both of us."

Glaring at Derek with an expression that resembled a glare Penelope might give him, Tala shoved her plate that was still empty away from her and rose to her feet. "Yeah, just keep pretending that, Dad," she retorted, throwing her hands in the air. "She's a bitch and you know it!"

"Your mother isn't a bitch," he said weakly.

"Yes, she is!" Tala hollered. "She broke your heart, and you're still so in love with her that you can't get mad at her! It's awful what she did to you! So no, she doesn't miss you. She's too selfish for that."

Soraya started to cry, and Derek rubbed his forehead as Tala started to storm off. "Tala! Tala, get back here!" He got up to follow her, but stopped in the doorframe when he deemed it pointless. Tala was the only one of the three of his daughters who was pissed as hell at Penelope. She could barely contain her anger around her and since she got her driver's license she spent more time at Derek's apartment than she did at the home she'd grown up in.

Going back to the table, he rubbed his youngest child's shoulders and murmured, "Honey, it's okay. Tala is just angry. She didn't mean what she said."

"I really think Mom does miss you," she whispered tearfully. "Sometimes I hear her crying and –"

Derek silenced her. "Honey, your Mom doesn't miss me," he said softly. "I know you want her to, but she doesn't. So let's just eat dinner, okay?"

Soraya just nodded mutely and started to pick at her food.

XXXXX

After his daughters were all in bed, Derek sat down on his bed and put his head in his hands. He'd knocked several times on Tala's door to try and get her to talk to him, but she'd locked it up and ignored him. In the end, he merely returned to his room to get ready to go to bed himself, his thoughts threatening to consume him.

Penelope had told him to leave their home six months ago, and he couldn't say he wasn't mad at her. In fact, he was furious. She gave up on him when he tried to fix their marriage. He cut down his hours at work and limited the amount of cases he would go on. On a night he thought would be a reconciling date, she told him he needed to leave.

I can't do this anymore, Derek. You put your work above me and the girls and I'm done with it.

So he did what she asked. And then he left her alone.

He was too mad. He didn't try and call or reconcile. He just…stayed away. He kept his thoughts to himself. The truth was that he loved his wife. He loved her more than life itself, to put it in cliché terms. He wanted to move back home and wake up with her every morning; he was willing to do anything to prove his love.

Figuring out how to handle his daughters was the one thing that made him most stressed. Soraya was stuck in a world where she was sure her parents were positively getting back together and this was just a nightmare. Lindy was so quiet that she buried her head in a book and tried to ignore everything. She tried to be the universal peacemaker and keep her sisters from falling apart.

However well her efforts worked with her baby sisters though, Tala was a whole other story. Tala was angry about the separation and positive her mother was to blame for the separation. She locked herself in her room at Penelope's house and spent as much time with Derek as possible.

He had never felt more lost as a father.

Opening his night table drawer, he pulled out a photo he'd taken from home before he left. It was a picture he'd taken of Penelope when she was pregnant with Tala. He'd taken it from their house without her knowing. She was pissed at him when he tried to take a set of towels; he didn't particularly think she would take kindly to him taking a picture of her after she kicked him out. He traced the outline of her face and sighed. It would be better for him to get over Penelope. She was obviously moving on from him, entering into a relationship with a man she'd met at one of Tala's soccer games.

Maybe he should face the facts. Moving on was the only way to get past his love for Penelope.

The problem was he knew it wouldn't be possible to move on.

XXXXX

"Baby, when do the girls get home tomorrow?"

Penelope looked up from her computer at Kyle, the man she was tentatively seeing after meeting him a month ago. He was standing in the doorway to the room that used to be the office she'd once shared with Derek, his arms crossed over his chest. A slight smile played up on his face, and she looked at him with a neutral face.

She blamed her less than gracious attitude on the name "Baby" sounding so strange on another man's lips.

"Er, they get back around six," she said. "Why do you ask?"

He smiled wider. "Well, I was thinking we could, maybe, go to my house," he said, coming in and putting his hands on her shoulders, massaging them.

She stiffened at his touch. Kyle was always trying to get her to come over to his house whenever her children were with Derek. She knew exactly what he was trying to get her to do; he made it very clear he wanted to take their relationship up a step. That was not something she wasn't ready for. She needed to come up with an excuse.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "I'm seeing JJ tomorrow around noon. So…" Her voice trailed off.

"Penelope, when are we going to do this?" he asked tiredly. "You know how I feel about you."

"Kyle," she said tiredly, pulling out of his grasp, "listen. We've been dating for a month. One month. I'm not…ready for…" She could hardly say the word. "…sex. I mean, one month is just ridiculous."

Although she couldn't really say her final sentence with much seriousness. Derek and she had fallen into bed a mere fifteen minutes after their first date. "Give me a little time."

Truth was that a little time for her would be ten years. Likely more. No other man would be able to give her what Derek had given her.

Kyle sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I can do that," he said impatiently. "Derek must've taken a real toll on you to have you waiting so long."

Penelope didn't say anything. Her marriage to Derek had become exhausting. He spent more time at work than he did at home, he ignored her most of the time when he was, and he couldn't make it to events that involved their children.

Lack of love wasn't a problem. Derek was the love of her life. It was his consistent lack of attention for Penelope and the girls that sent her over the edge. The endless cases, the long hours. She had grown tired of it and had ended it. Kyle was right that Derek had taken a toll on her; what he failed to see was she still loved her husband, no matter how sick of him she was.

"I still have some work to do," she said, gesturing to her computer. "I think you should go now."

Sighing heavily, Kyle kissed her quickly and murmured, "I'll call you."

Penelope was relieved when she was left in the silence of the office. She liked having time to think. When Derek had the girls, the house was huge and lonely and the only thing she could do was think about what had happened with her life. Her oldest daughter hated her guts, her younger daughters were suffering in silence, and Derek was out of her life in both their marriage and friendship. For the first few months when the girls were gone with their father, she cried the entire time they were gone. But she told herself she needed to move on. She quit crying, she packed up all her pictures and direct memories of Derek, and she found a man to date.

The only problem was she felt like crying all the time, she constantly pulled out the pictures to look at, and she thought about Derek when she was with Kyle.

Equally as distressing as her decision to leave Derek was her relationship with Tala. She knew her eldest daughter blamed her for their family splitting apart at the seams. Any moment she could get away, she went and spent the time with her father. When the team was out of town on a case she locked herself in her room and refused to say anything that wasn't hostile. And when the subject of Kyle arose, she became downright miserable to be around.

"I cannot believe you would date that jackass!" Tala snarled. "He's awful, and he treats you like an object." Penelope opened her mouth to try and refute her statement, but her daughter thundered on. "You broke Dad's heart and he's done nothing but love you! Well, I've got news for you, Mom…you don't deserve him! Especially since you started dating someone so obviously beneath him."

Anger rising in her, Penelope snapped, "Tala, that's enough! Your father and I fell apart. Kyle has nothing to do with that."

With venom in her eyes, Tala allowed her voice to raise several decibels. "I don't want anything to do with you anymore, Mom," she growled, stalking off. "I hate you." She threw the last statement over her shoulder and slammed the door to her room shut.

That conversation still brought tears to her eyes.

The fact of the matter was she was on the verge of the tears at all times. Six months ago she had ended her marriage, telling her husband he needed to leave. And even though she still loved Derek more than any man in the entire world and probably would never stop loving him, she had to move on from him.

She couldn't take her daughters and her coming in second to his career. She couldn't take the loneliness she felt anymore. So she did the one thing she could think of: she left to begin the process of moving on.

I know, mean of me.