Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds
Abandon All Hope
Chapter One
All that Penelope needed to be happy was her computer. At the moment, she was more than happy. Wrapped in a soft blanket on her couch, she was sitting with her laptop playing one of her games. Despite the unfortunate hacking that had occurred at the hands of Sir Knieghf, Penelope couldn't deny her soft spot for MMORPGs. It was a way to delve into a fantasy world that, while it still had violence, didn't share the harsh brutalities of the real world. She was able to have fun, and ever since the incident at work, she'd never attempted to play while there. That was strictly for when she was at home, or at Kevin's. Although, when she was at Kevin's she wasn't really interested in playing games. Unless, of course, when he wanted to play online with her. It was nerdy, but if the shoe fit, neither of them saw any reason not to wear it.
Penelope was immersed in her game, and hadn't been expecting a window to pop up on her screen accompanied by several loud beeps. It startled her so much that she jumped, swearing loudly. The swearing only continued when she read what was on the window. Her instant response of crying didn't bother her. Everyone knew that Penelope wore her heart on her sleeve, and that she wasn't ashamed at the feelings she carried for her fellow team members. In fact, she refused to simply call them her team members, or her friends. They were her family, even Jason and Elle, who were no longer with the BAU. They would, and had in some cases, killed for one another, and that meant the world to someone like Penelope. It meant that she would always consider them her closest friends, and among the handful that she would do absolutely anything for.
The written words relaying the 911 call were all she could think about as she dialed Derek's number. This is Emily Prentiss with the FBI requesting assistance and an ambulance at 4631 Shell Avenue. We have an agent, Jennifer Jareau, down, and the attacker is still in the area. He's armed with a knife. Shaking so much that it took three tries to get the number right, Penelope was beside herself with fear and worry. The rest of the document said J.J. was beaten, but then it just stopped abruptly. There was no other information. When Derek answered, she could barely get the words out. Everything kept getting mixed up, and she had a feeling that Derek was going to think she was drunk.
She was right. Penelope tried to gather herself, get what she wanted to say in the right order while Derek laughed and asked her if she was alright. Evidently the fact that she was crying hadn't registered, or he was distracted enough that he hadn't noticed. "Derek, shut up. I'm not fine. You need to call Hotch and the others and let them know that J.J. and Emily were attacked at J.J.'s house. I don't know what happened. It just stops after Emily says that J.J. was beaten," she said in a rush. Penelope thought that maybe a few words were unintelligible, but for the most part, was confident that the point had gotten across. Derek was silent on the other end for all of three seconds.
"What are you talking about, Penelope?" he asked, and she knew she had his complete attention. Derek never called her Penelope unless it was serious. Usually she hated it, but right now, she didn't care. She was simply happy that he was listening to her and not laughing.
"I know I'm not supposed to, but I have a trace up for 911 logs so that if any of your names ever comes up being typed in by an operator I'll be informed," she told him, hoping that he would simply accept that and then get off the phone. It didn't occur to her that she could have called everyone herself. Her first instinct when she was feeling scared was to call Derek. Penelope felt safe with him, even just talking with him on the phone she felt better.
"That sounds just like something you would do," Derek commented softly. "Alright, sit tight, Baby Girl. I'll call the others. Find out what you can, and then come in. I'll be there with the others." Then he was gone, and Penelope felt small and insignificant in terms of being able to do anything useful. That was, until she realized who she was and what she could do to help. She wasn't a member of the team for nothing. Soon, she was sitting in front of her computer, fingers clicking on the keyboard as fast she could, eyes glued to the computer. More reports had come in about the call. Apparently the police had arrived shortly after, found the place empty, two dogs severely injured, sign of a struggle but no FBI agents or man with a knife.
This didn't sit well with Penelope, who was on her feet the next instant. She was halfway to the door when she realized she wasn't wearing shoes, and that it was cold enough outside that she'd need a jacket. Fixing the situation quickly, she was out the door and on her way to the only place she would be better suited to help her friends. The car drive was tense, too quiet and halfway there she turned the radio on to keep her mind from going to dark, dark places only to turn it off five minutes later in irritation. She didn't want to listen to some stupid love song when her friends could be dying, or already dead. What she wanted was for someone to come on the radio and tell her that they'd been found, were safe, but that wasn't going to happen. She preferred the silence.
By the time she'd arrived mostly everyone was already there, and the absence of Emily and J.J. was glaringly obvious. It was apparent on all their faces that they were worried, but Penelope knew that if anyone could save them, it was definitely the group assembled before her. It gave her comfort, and hope that they had a fighting chance. It didn't really matter that for the time being that hope was so slim that Penelope felt like it wasn't even there. The majority of her feelings were caught up in a whirlwind of terror. Terror that she was unwilling to succumb to as she faced Aaron and asked, "What do you have for me to work with, Hotch?"
Aaron glanced up at her. He'd been reading something, frowning. "Not much more than what you gave us. We called the station, they were glad to have us help them. I sent Reid and Rossi there to see what else they could find out from the scene," he explained.
"I'm assuming you asked if any other women have gone missing recently?" Penelope inquired, already thinking ahead to what she needed to look for herself.
"None have, which means we don't have any other victimology to go on other than J.J. and Prentiss," he told her, sounding defeated. It wasn't often that Penelope, or any of the others, heard him that way.
"I'll look in surrounding cities," Penelope assured him. They were losing time, time that didn't need to be spent talking about what to do. Everyone had been in these situations enough time to know what should be done, and how fast. That meant that all Penelope really cared about was getting online and searching for whatever might help. Her usual guilt over looking through people's private lives was still there, but she knew that in order to save J.J. and Emily she would have to dig a little, find out what they'd been doing outside of their time at work. It felt wrong to her, always had, but it was a necessary evil that she knew had to be done.
The first thing she did was check for missing women in this city, and outlying ones. There were a few, but most of them seemed to either be runaways or just didn't fit with the age of either Emily or J.J. Either way, she noted them, called Aaron and told him. He came to the same conclusion as her. The fourteen year old girl that was missing was likely a runaway. The sixty year old was a mystery, but since she had a history of mental problems and of disappearing periodically when she was younger, they wrote her off the list, too. The only one that remotely even seemed plausible was a thiry-five year old school teacher that had gone missing two weeks ago. She lived alone, had no children, wasn't married or divorced. Aaron told her to keep the name and check it out further, but for the time being try to see if there was any reason besides work that someone might want to take both Emily and J.J.
Forty minutes later she was still typing furiously when Derek came him. Penelope barely noticed. When she didn't pay him any attention, he cleared his throat, remaining near the door. Pausing momentarily, Penelope glanced behind her. "All I can tell you right now is that neither of them have any overlap except for work. They don't shop at the same places, live in the same area, aren't registered to any clubs or societies that are the same, didn't grow up anywhere near each other, colleges and universities don't match. Nothing," Penelope rattled off. It was frustrating, but not that surprising. She might not be a profiler, but she could tell that Emily and J.J. were as different as night and day, in likely all aspects of their life.
"Keep at it, Penelope," Derek said, but there was nothing more from him. When she looked back he was gone. Her pang of disappointment that he hadn't stayed longer vanished quickly. She had more important issues to deal with, even if it seemed like she was getting nowhere. Everything became a dead end when it came to either woman's life outside of work. The more she looked, the more frustrated she became until Penelope was crying again. If it had been any other case, she would have taken a few minutes to collect herself, to get her emotions under wraps. But there was no time, or so she kept reminding herself. Soon she stopped crying as she became more and more focused on what she was doing.
When Aaron called her, asking about the woman who had gone missing, Penelope snapped at him initially. After apologizing profusely she explained that the woman resembled J.J. more than Emily. Blonde hair, blue eyes, thirty-five to J.J.'s thirty-one. This seemed to bother Aaron almost as much as it had bothered her. Neither said much about it, and the call was brief, with Aaron saying he was at J.J's but it wasn't giving them much. Penelope hung up without a word, going back to her work. If this woman, Natalie Corrigan, had been taken by the same person, Penelope needed to see if there was a connection at all between her, Emily and J.J.
First try, there was nothing. Second try, Penelope found a connection to J.J. It seemed that in the past six months, the two frequently shopped at the same pet store. It wasn't much, and it could be one hell of a coincidence, but it was more than she'd found concerning Emily and J.J. Looking into it further, she found that J.J. had adopted a dog from the same shelter that Natalie volunteered at. Again, it could be a coincidence, but something told Penelope that it wasn't. When she told Aaron, he didn't seem to think it was either. It was a lead, not much of a lead, but at least it was something. Penelope's tiny sliver of hope grew, ever so slightly.
