AN: Hi *waves* After a year-long hiatus, I'm back! Sorry for the disappearing act. The song is "King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles. I don't own the song, or the anything else you recognize. I hope you enjoy the story.
"Penny? Are you listening to me?"
Kevin's voice, and the annoyance in it, finally penetrated her musings. Barely managing to suppress a sigh, she dragged her eyes away from the window and back to her irritated boyfriend. Who was, once again, lecturing on the amount of time and effort she gave to her job – and the people who worked with her. Forcing something resembling a smile to her face, she nodded. "I'm listening, Kevin."
He studied her face, nodded. "I hope so. I'm getting tired of having this conversation – it's like talking to a brick wall! You never take my advice."
Maybe that's because I never asked for your opinions, she grumbled to herself, but just nodded, struggling to keep the smile on her face. "I'll think about it, Kevin."
"I hope you will this time, Pen. This is getting old." Considering the topic closed, he pushed back from the table to go get ready, and Penelope took a deep drink of her coffee. Maybe it'll be a while before we get another case that requires my expertise, she thought, a little desperately. Give this topic – and Kevin -a little time to settle down again.
It was not to be. Shortly after lunch, when she was in her office working on cold cases, someone knocked on the door to her bunker. Calling for them to enter the presence of the Goddess, she set her current search to run and turned around, smile ready. She took in the set of Hotch's shoulders and the lines around his mouth, and it died before it could even bloom.
"Garcia, we caught a case – it's bad. Conference room in 10."
"How bad?" She asked, mouth suddenly dry.
"Kids. Abducted and murdered." With that, he left, and Penelope closed her eyes, attempting to prepare herself for the images she would see over the course of the case. Kevin isn't going to like this, she thought, before she dragged herself up from her chair, collected her laptop and mug, and slowly made her way to the conference room.
An hour later, she was back in her bunker, pushing the horror down as she began the searches and research that the case demanded. Hotch had been right, it was bad – the ones with kids always were. Someone was abducting kids, holding and torturing them for seven days before murdering them. The whole time he had them, he was taunting the parents with emailed photos (untraceable, of course) of the children that accompanied cryptic clues to their location. The most recent child, a 8 year old girl named Halle, had only gone missing 15 hours before, and the emails hadn't started yet. They wanted to have traces in place before the first one arrived. Sitting down, she pulled up her personal email and shot a quick email off to Kevin:
Kevin – The team caught a bad one. I'll let you know when it's over. Talk to you then. PG
That was the last time she thought of him for nearly 5 days, until she made the phone call giving them the only 2 names it could possibly be. The team was exhausted, her included as she had only slept when they – or the majority of them– had. Delivering the names to a stonily furious Hotch and a blisteringly incensed Morgan had been satisfying, and had most likely ended the case – but she wouldn't go home until she was sure. To distract herself while she waited on news, she began to compile the file, the parameters of the searches she had run and her portion of the paperwork.
90 minutes later, her phone rang and her breath caught in her throat as she answered.
"Oracle of Quantico." It wasn't as snappy as her usual answers, but it was the best she could do.
"Baby." Her chocolate god sounded exhausted – and satisfied. "We got him."
"Thank god for that. The team?"
Morgan had to smile – it was always her biggest worry, her crime-fighters coming home in roughly the same condition she had sent them in. "We're fine. All of us."
Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Penelope asked, "What about Halle?"
Morgan sighed. "She'll survive," he said, the satisfaction leaving his voice. They were silent for a moment – the team had gotten to her, but she had been in pretty bad condition, judging by the pictures that Penelope had seen. She was glad that she wouldn't have to see Halle's final injuries – she was going to have nightmares as it was.
"Well, hurry home, Hot Stuff."
"We will, Mama. We'll be wheels up in a few hours. I'll text you."
Hanging up the phone, Penelope knew she should go home now that she knew the case was over, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to sleep just yet. Wanting to exhaust her mind the way her body was, she continued to work for several more hours. When she received the text that said the team was on the way, she slumped down in her chair. She scrubbed her hands over her face, waves of exhaustion breaking over her. She was glad it was late – way past midnight. Kevin wouldn't ask to come over now, which meant he wouldn't be woken up by her nightmares, which would give him less ammunition when they revisited their breakfast conversation from days earlier. That thought made her shoulders sag even more, and she contemplated stretching out on the sofa in her office before dragging herself up and slowly collecting her things. She knew she was in no shape to drive home and dialed the number of a cab company.
The ride home was a blur. She barely remembered thanking the driver, digging out her keys and letting herself in. She paused only long enough to shuck off her clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor as she fell into bed.
She was awakened roughly 8 hours later by a knock at her door. Groaning, she rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep, hoping that whoever it was would go away. Several seconds later, her cell phone rang, followed immediately by another volley of knocks.
Cursing under her breath, she got up, threw on a pair of cotton sleep pants and one of Morgan's FBI t-shirts and shuffled to the door. Throwing it open, she squinted bleary eyes at the opening and nearly groaned again. She wasn't seeing anything resembling the color of chocolate, thereby removing her hopes that Morgan had come to see her. Forcing as much of a smile onto her lips as she could, she leaned against the door frame.
"Hi, Kevin."
"Did I wake you up?" He asked, looking her over with raised eyebrows. "It's nearly noon, Penny. I thought you might like to go get some lunch."
She looked him like he was a little crazy - she couldn't help it. "Kevin, I got home sometime after 4 this morning. All I really want to do is go back to sleep."
He frowned and looked more closely at her. His eyes roamed her face, taking in the exhaustion still evident in her face and the eyes that were deep set and barely open. Pushing her gently back into her apartment, he surveyed the room. It was too neat - in fact, it looked exactly the same as when he had left it nearly a week earlier.
"Penny. Did you come home at all during the case?" Shaking his head, he moved into her kitchen and began brewing coffee. Sure, come on in, make yourself at home. Would you like anything? she thought nastily, drifting into the kitchen after him. Sighing, she sat and waited for the rest of the conversation to begin.
He didn't ask her about the case, didn't say anything at all until the coffee had finished brewing. He poured them both cups and brought them to the table, setting one in front of her and sat down with the other.
"I didn't want to have this conversation again, Penny. I thought we agreed. You need to be working normal hours, not spending entire weeks sleeping in your office!"
Gritting her teeth, Penelope counted backwards from 10 while sipping her coffee. "We didn't agree, Kevin. I said I'd think about it."
"And how will you ever get the chance to do that if you're taking cat naps on your couch waiting for them to call you, expecting you to produce miracles in no time at all?"
At least they think I'm capable and good at something, she thought, but she bit her tongue and sighed again. She was too tired for this. "Kevin, this is my job. The team is my family. It's not like I'm being forced into this."
Kevin looked at her earnestly. "Aren't you? It's like you're drowning in a sea of work. You're very loyal, Penny, it's one of the things I love about you, and you'd do anything for the people you love, even to the detriment of yourself."
Shaking her head, she defended, "It's not like this is every night, Kevin. It's once in a while."
He shook his head. "I have some news for you that I think you're really going to like," he said, a grin spreading across his features.
Penelope was surprised by the sudden change of topic, but willing to go along with anything that was NOT this conversation. "Oh yeah, what's that?"
"I have a good friend that's in charge of the tech pool assigned to computer crimes. We were at school together and we have lunch pretty frequently, especially when you're on a case. Well, we were talking about you, and how good you are, and he's agreed to give you an interview! Isn't that great?"
Penelope stared at him, too shocked to say anything. Taking her silence for encouragement, he continued, "The hours are normal, 8 hour tours, 5 days a week, extremely rare nights or weekends. Think about it, Penny! You could come home every night. Wouldn't you like that?"
Penelope continued to gape at him, unable to believe anything she'd just heard. He'd gone to the head of a different division, asked for a favor, and gotten her an interview - all without her knowledge or desire! She shifted her stare to the window and began to count to 10 again, slowly. When she got there and her blood was beginning to boil, she continued on to 20, then to 30. She gritted her teeth when his voice interrupted her again.
"Well, Penny? What do you think?" She shifted her eyes back to him, unable to calm down and the innocence in his voice incensed her further. His eyes said he had known exactly what he was doing, and was not only certain that he knew what was best for her, but that he actually thought she was going to be grateful to him.
"What exactly do you expect me to do, here, Kevin? Go to an interview for a job I didn't apply for and don't want?" Penelope said, coldly.
Kevin looked surprised at her outburst. "Come on, Penny. Don't be like that. I was just trying to help."
Penelope snorted. "Sure you were. You were trying to help organize MY life into the path that you think it should take," she shot back.
"I just think that if you really stepped back and looked at your life, you would see what I see. Someone who is overworked and under-appreciated. I think I might be able to see that better then you, here, Penny." Kevin's tone was full of innocence, but the edge of a whine in his voice said that this was not going the way he expected.
Penelope froze, staring at him. After a moment, she found her voice. "Wait a minute. Just wait. Did you really just say you might know something about my life better than me?"
Realizing his mistake, Kevin immediately began to backtrack. "Wait. Just listen, Penny -"
Shoving away from the table, she stood up. "No. For once in your life, you listen. Jesus, you've got the talking part down pat. I'm not lost, Kevin. I'm not looking for a career change. I realize you've got opinions, but have you noticed that I never asked for them? I love the work I do, Kevin. My team counts on my input, every day, with every case."
"Doesn't what I think matter?" he whined.
"It does. But you knew when we started this how important my work was to me. For God's sake, I had just been shot because of my work and that didn't even make me want to stop! I know how important yours is to you, too, so where do you get off telling me that I should change jobs? Is my work less important than yours?"
"No, but -"
"And have I ever asked you to change anything?"
He didn't answer for a moment. "This is not the way I expected this conversation to go," he finally said, huffily.
Penelope couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. "Are you serious? What did you think would happen when you told me that you were rearranging MY life for me?"
"It's not funny, Penny."
The laughter abruptly stopped. "No, the fact that one of the things that is most important to me is an inconvenience for you really isn't funny," she said, snidely. Sighing, Penelope stopped and took several deep breaths. Collecting her thoughts, she continued. "There was one thing that was true in what you said. Since my parents died, I've tried to make the people that I love happy, while I try to keep what I'm feeling to myself. The BAU team, MY team, doesn't allow me to do that. They care about me. They may not understand me all the time, but they don't try to change me either. They accept it, and they love me. I'm not about to leave the best job I've ever had, Kevin."
She paused again and took a deep breath. "If you can't accept that, then I think you should leave."
His shock once again registered on his face. "What? I wasn't trying to break us up, Penny -"
"Oh, I know that. I think you were trying to steer me into the mold you thought I should fit in your life. But I'm not about to ride into that delusional sunset with you, Kevin." Picking back up her abandoned coffee mug, she moved to the counter and refilled it while he stared at her, speechless. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my three days off. Enjoy the rest of your weekend." Cup in hand, she moved to the front door, and pointedly opened it. Kevin stopped just outside the threshold and turned back to face her. He opened his mouth, and then closed it when nothing came out. Clearing this throat, he tried again. "Penny –" Shaking her head, Penelope cut him off. "Good-bye Kevin." He was still standing there, looking shocked, as she gently but firmly closed the door in his face.
Thoughts?