I do not own Criminal Minds nor any of the characters.

Sitting at her desk staring at the horrible images of the day, Penelope Garcia couldn't help but let her mind drift as far away from the case as possible. These days, her mind felt bombarded by horror constantly, between working long days and being stuck by herself in Quantico while the rest of the team was elsewhere. At least they had each other while they were working. She was stuck on her own, fighting her demons. Rather than thinking about work and their latest serial killer, Penelope was thinking, or maybe daydreaming, about the subject of her favorite fantasies: SSA Hot Stuff. Yes, her god of chocolate thunder had been at the forefront of her dreams and imaginings lately. Well, if every day of the past ten years counts as lately.

Much as they flirted constantly and could set a room on fire with their sexual tension, nothing had ever happened between the two, much to Penelope's dismay. She used to think that it would ruin their friendship, but since her recent breakup with Sam, Penelope was feeling lonely and was regretting never having taken the plunge with Derek. She knew that anything that would happen between them would probably be meaningless: more of a one night stand than any long-term relationship. Derek wasn't built for long-term. He was built for flings. At least, he used to be. Then he met Savannah and everything about him seemed to change. He finally found the right woman for him, but it wasn't her. It wasn't Penelope.

Penelope spent a long time wallowing in self-pity once Derek and Savannah continued dating past the usual one month window of time that Derek could be with a woman before he got bored or found someone else. Penelope was determined to not let this destroy her. She was his best friend and she needed to act like it, but sometimes it was hard to be supportive of him when she wanted to be the one he came home to at the end of cases. When she wanted to be the one he would hold when the demons were closing it, when the cases got to be too much. But she wasn't. So instead, she made that the subject of her fantasies. Her fantasies weren't dirty or smutty. They were just Derek holding her; Derek telling her he loved her; Derek coming back from a case and telling her that she was the only reason he made it through. That the thought of coming home and seeing her helped him to put another bad guy behind bars. That was what she wanted. That was what she was never going to have with him.

Penelope was so focused on thinking about Derek and how life could be better that she didn't notice the phone ringing until it was on the fourth ring, and because of that, she was so flustered that she couldn't even think up a clever way to answer the phone. "Garcia," she said.

"Penelope?" Reid asked. "Is that you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Super Agent," she replied, adding some feigned enthusiasm to her voice. "What can I do for you?"

"Kitten, are you sure you're okay?" Rossi threw in. "You don't sound alright."

"Seriously, I'm fine. Just a rough case. Now, how can I help?"

After some hard work from the whole team, they were finally able to put the bad guy behind bars. Several hours later, the team was in the air flying home to her. Ordinarily, she would wait at work to greet them upon their return, but today she just couldn't. She had decided that today was the last day she would spend daydreaming about when Derek would wake up and notice her. She was done. And she was done acting like a puppy waiting by the door for him to come home. So, instead, she went home, turned off her phone, and took a bubble bath.

While in the bath, she began thinking about anything but Derek. She wanted to be well and truly rid of the fantasies. They were never going to happen and the longer she thought that they were, the more pain she was going to be in when she realized it would never happen. She needed a break from him. A clean break. Maybe they shouldn't be friends anymore. It wasn't healthy for her to be around him all the time. For her to go over to his house when she was lonely and cuddle with him. For her to watch movies with him at the end of cases and sit so close together that she could feel him move every time he breathed. For her to flirt with him endlessly. She needed to be done with it all. That was the only way she was going to get over him. Maybe she should leave. No, she couldn't leave her family. But, she also couldn't stay and see him every day and every night and hear his voice constantly. She couldn't be there the day that he announced that he and Savannah were getting married or that she was pregnant, or on the other hand, that they had broken up. That would give her too much hope. Too much hope is a bad thing where Derek is concerned.

She was torn out of her ponderings by a pounding at her front door. The pounding grew faster and louder as she got out of the bath and put on her robe before exiting the bathroom. "Hold your horses, I'm coming!" she shouted, making her way to the door. Flinging the door open, she was somewhat shocked to find Rossi standing on the other side looking very worried. "Rossi? What are you doing here?"

"Checking on you. I've been worried sick, kitten. You sounded upset on the phone earlier today and then you weren't at the office when we got back and when I called, it went straight to voice mail. I needed to make sure you were okay."

"Come in," she said, opening the door widely so that he could enter and then closing and locking it behind him before joining him on the couch. "You don't need to be worried about me"

"I'm always worried about you."

"Why?"

"Well, for starters, you see some terrible things on those screens of yours, and you're all alone here in Quantico, while the rest of us are at least together and have each other for support."

"I'm fine, Rossi. You don't need to worry about me."

"Yes I do," he said, while he looked at her outfit. "Did I interrupt something again? I'm sorry, I have terrible timing."

"No! It's just me here. I was taking a bath. I didn't feel like waiting at work."

"Why?"

"It was a hard case."

"They're all hard. Something is different. Something is wrong. What did Derek do?"

"Nothing! Nothing is wrong and Derek didn't do anything."

"Oh, I see." He took a pause before saying," Derek didn't do anything." He said this while giving her a knowing look, and that was all it took for the final walls of her control to come tumbling down. She began to cry on the couch and Rossi pulled her to him, holding her sobbing form and letting her cry into his shirt.

Once she had regained some composure, she told him everything. About falling in love with him when she first started at the BAU, about thinking that he loved her back, only to realize that he meant his love platonically, about not wanting to marry Kevin because he wasn't Derek, about Sam breaking up with her because he knew she would never love him as much as Derek. She told him everything that had been pressing on her heart for the past ten years. "I've been thinking about leaving the BAU," she confessed to him. "I don't want to lose my family, but I can't do this anymore."

"Don't leave!" he interjected, speaking for the first time in a long while since she had started opening up. "Leaving isn't going to help anything. You want Derek to notice you, right? I think I might have an idea."