A/N: Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, etc.

Same Book but Never the Same Page
Chapter Two :: Sound the Alarm

Penelope sat in the passenger seat of Derek's car, which was parked across the street from Harry O's. She was beyond nervous and the signs of that could be seen in the way she twisted the strap to her purse. It was 11:13 and Katherine was already inside the restaurant. "This is a bad idea. I don't feel well; I should just cancel and say I had car trouble." Penelope stated out loud as herself and Morgan looked over at the younger girl.

Katherine was dressed in black pants and wore a light short sleeved hoodie. She sat at the booth, book in hand while she chatted with the waiter. "I will not allow you to back out without meeting her. If it goes bad, just remember to pull your hair up in a ponytail. I'll call in and say we have work to do." Morgan stared over at his friend only to see the look of defeat upon her. "You're My Girl and you got this. Now go and be the amazing woman you are." He urged her. "Alright, Sugar, I'm going. Promise not to leave without me?" She stepped out of the car but stood in the doorway. "Penelope, quit stalling and get yourself over there. Time is ticking."

She closed the door in a huff and frowned at the building. Looking both ways, she crossed the street and only looked back to Morgan after she reached the sidewalk. He was starting at her and gestured for her to keep going when her eyes met his. Moving quickly she shuffled over to the door and entered hasty, startling the hostess with her abrupt swinging of the front door.

"Welcome to Harry O's." The hostess composed herself quickly. "Will it be just one?" She asked with a practiced smile on her face. "Actually I am meeting someone here." It would be completely awkward if she just walked over to the girl herself, considering she hadn't seen her in years. "To be honest, the person is my sister, but I seen her in years. I don't think you do reservations here but I'm looking for Katherine." Garcia started chatting nervously but the hostess grinned widely at her. "Oh my god! I have been waiting for this day. You are all that girl has ever talked about these past few days. She will be so happy to see you; follow me!" The girl, whose name tag read 'Rachael' was practically rocking on her heels with excitement.

The hostess walked her down the row of tables and pointed to Katherine's booth. "She is right over there. I'll let you introduce yourself. Good luck!" With that she walked away. Penelope took in a deep breath and walked over to the table. "Katherine?" She spoke, a small crack in her voice. The girl tore her eyes from her book and stared at her. "Penelope?" Katherine smiled at her. The Tech Queen could only nod her head; she never thought this would happen. Katherine stood up quickly and stood awkwardly in front of her. "It's good to see you." She paused. "Um, would it be incredibly awkward if I hugged you? Or should we just shake hands?" She asked, suddenly unaware what would be right for their circumstance.

Penelope recovered quickly and placed her bag on the booth seat. "A hug would be fine by me." She stated and opened her arms. The younger girl let out a small laugh of happiness and wrapped her arms around her sister. They parted after a quick moment and took their seats. "I'm glad you could make it." Katherine stated. "I hope you don't mind that I ordered already, I have only an hour for lunch."

Penelope shook her head. "No, that's fine. I'm not going to eat anything actually, probably just a drink." She stated. "Honestly I've been nervous about this all morning so I don't have much of an appetite." She admitted to the younger girl. "No, I understand you there." Katherine nodded her head. "It took me twelve times to actually call you and leave the message."

There was a small pause in their conversation, neither knowing where to start. Penelope took in her features, looking much like her picture on the computer screen, except her hair was a little bit longer, reaching the bottom of her shoulder blades. The picture had to be taken months ago. Her brown eyes shined brightly while her lips curled up in a small smile. She was tiny too, probably about 110 pounds soaking wet. Garcia always knew she'd be a pretty girl. "So how have you been?" Katherine's voice reached her ears.

"Oh, I've been good." The blonde haired female had no idea what else to say, but realized that there was so much she could talk about. It was just surreal being there, face to face for the first time in years. "I work full time, not married. I have a solid group of friends, they are my co-workers." She stated. "Nice, where do you work?" Katherine asked, not skipping a beat. "I actually work for the FBI." Katherine's eyes grew wide. "You're shitting me... Oops! I mean no way! That's pretty awesome. What do you do?" She was intrigued but took a moment to thank the waiter, Jim, who delivered her lunch.

"Would you like anything miss?" The waiter asked Penelope. "I'll just a water with lemon, please." She waited for him to walk away before answering the girl. "Well I'm a Technical Analyst. It's not that amazing as it sounds." She stated.

"Well doesn't that mean you do a lot of the research of the bad guys?" Katherine asked. Penelope nodded her head. "Yeah; something like that and some other things as well with the computers." She admitted.

"Are you kidding me?! You like are super awesome! You are an important part of saving lives, not everyone needs a gun on them to save someone. I understand that it takes a lot of work to do your job. God, that's just really cool. I would have never guessed that as your job." Katherine bit into her sandwich.

Penelope couldn't help but smile as Katherine gushed with pride over her. "Thanks. What about you?" She asked already knowing the answer, but it'd be nice to hear the words from her. Jim had returned with her water and placed it on the table before taking his leave again.

"I work in Animal Rescue. I work primarily in local animal control and cruelty investigations but I am part of the Emergency Response Team for the Humane Society of the United States." Katherine stated right before she sipped her tea.

"That's amazing. So you save lives as well." Penelope stated getting a grin in response. "Yeah you could say that."

Lunch was going smoothly; both deciding not to talk about the past but time was running out. "Look Katherine, I'm sorry I left you. I just figu-" Penelope was cut off. "Stop. We have more time to talk about what happened in the past at a later time. I really just wanted to meet with you and catch up. I'm sure we have plenty of things to discuss from good days and bad days to days we wish never existed. However, today is today and I think our get together went rather well. Let's not soil it with ugly things." Katherine gave her a sad smile. "I'd really like to do this again sometime. Perhaps we can do dinner or just hang out."

Penelope nodded her head. "I'd like that very much as well." It was then that the two split ways, Katherine getting back to her job at the animal rescue agency and Penelope getting into Morgan's car.

"From the looks of it, I'd say it went rather well." He gave her a smile as she buckled her seatbelt. "It did. It really did. She's way better in person than she is in her blog. Thank you for bringing me here." She responded to him as she watched her younger sister make her way through the streets, Humane Law Officer printed on the back of her hoodie.

When Morgan and Garcia arrived back at the office, J.J was the first to question their disappearance. As the Tech Goddess bee-lined for her office, J.J looked over at Morgan. "Did you guys get lunch without me?" She asked. "Nah, I was helping her with something personal." He answered as he made his way to his desk.

J.J looked over at Penelope's doorway in confusion and worry. "Everything alright with her?" She questioned getting Dr. Reid's attention on the conversation. "Yeah, she's good. I'm sure she'll tell you all on her own when she is ready." He took his seat and looked over at Reid. "Anything new Pretty Boy?" He asked.

Before he could answer Hotch stepped out of his office. "I'll need everyone in the meeting room; we are being prepped for a new case."

*One Week Later*

They were on the plane, heading back to base. Penelope scanned through the last few posts on Katherine's page as she had been too busy with the case in South Carolina to keep up. There was a new picture up, this time she was kissing the muzzle of a dog that was looking at the camera. Penelope smiled as she reread the few sentences from the post from last week.

So I met my sister today, I was super nervous but she's totally awesome. You'll probably never believe me but she works with the FBI! How awesome is that? She's a total sweetheart too. I don't see why my brothers were so worried about me meeting her.

The two girls had been texting back and forth regularly which caught the attention of her other co-workers but they didn't question it just yet. Garcia didn't say anything to them about it either. Two days ago, J.J did question if it was a boyfriend that she would be meeting in the near future, but Penelope just laughed a little and waved her hand.

Penelope kept apologizing to Katherine for not getting together since their first meeting. Hotch requested that she went with the team this time. Katherine was more than fine with that; in fact she was on an Emergency Rescue Team mission out of state anyway. There was a string of tornadoes that had hit Texas which left a trail of disaster and homeless people and pets. So Penelope's little sister was out there climbing into houses that were torn apart and unstable to see if any animals remained alive. There was a new entry that was posted the previous night and it made her worry deeply about the girl.

July 12th - Today has been a difficult day. Christopher, from the Florida division, was my partner; we found body after body of deceased pets. I fear we are running out of time for the ones that have been injured and trapped. With the list of reported missing pets growing we are trying to search any houses on our list. We stopped at one house where a Beagle was reported to live. I found him in basement area with a broken leg; he must have fallen through the floor. Christopher held a rope line while I went in to grab him. The roof collapsed and almost took Chris out making him drop the line. I only scuffed my knees a little. He called for backup from team C who was only three blocks away. They carefully dug the dog and me out. The dog did in fact bite me when I grabbed him but I don't blame him. My hand is swollen though and it's hard to type this without fixing all of my spelling mistakes. Tomorrow I'll be stationed at the temporary shelter to reunite families with pets. I feel drained. Night all.

"Who is that?" Reid asked, peering over the woman's shoulder, interested in the picture on the screen. "Nothing!" Garcia, caught off guard, slammed her screen shut quickly, catching the attention of the entire team with her quick and nervous response. "I… I mean no one. It's no one." She tried to cover up her mistake.

"Didn't look like no one." He stated as he took a seat across from her. She looked nervously at the team who tried not to stare with interest but it was hard not to do so. "Fine, fine!" She reopened the laptop and turned the screen to everyone else. "It's just an online blog I have been reading." She stated.

She could tell that no one believed her that was JUST a blog she was reading. "Okay, fine!" She whined and looked over at Morgan for support. "Just tell them Baby Girl." He stated. By this time Reid was leaning forward inspecting the page. He took in the picture of the girl and the dog first before reading the blog post that was on the page. "You're not helping." Penelope stated at Morgan who just smiled at her and shrugged his shoulders. "You were going to tell them soon anyway; might as well do it now while it's relevant in the conversation."

"She works in Animal Rescue." Reid stated after he read the post, this caused Penelope to turn the screen away from him quickly. "Hey!" She got defensive again causing Reid to frown. He didn't think he did anything wrong. Garcia sighed and looked down at the picture of the girl and remembered the text message she had received earlier. Hey Penny, sorry I haven't texted all day. It was a rough one. Off to bed; text you tomorrow. "She's my sister." Penelope stated after a moment.

There was a long moment of silence before J.J spoke up. "Whoa! What?" There was another quick pause but before Penelope could say anything J.J started with a rapid fire of questions. "When did this happen? How did you find her? How long have you known?"

"J.J – give her a moment." Morgan laughed at the girl. Garcia sighed and began to explain her story about Katherine and why she was kept a secret. She talked about how she has been following her life for years, but of course Katherine doesn't know that. She talked about Katherine contacting her and their lunch date from the previous week. It was a little surreal to finally tell everyone about her sister, she wasn't sure how she was going to tell the team in the first place.

"So when do we meet this girl?" J.J asked when they landed at the airport. "Huh?" Garcia was confused at first, she had only met with her sister once since they started talking again, was she really ready to introduce her to her family? "Well, I mean I'd love to meet her, but if you don't want us to I understand. Our life style isn't the best for others to be around." The female stated.

"No. I'd love for her to meet you all. I just don't know how she'll feel about it. I'll ask her when she gets home from her rescue mission." Garcia stated. "Well, let me know. She sounds super nice and now I understand all the smiling when you read you text messages."

*Three days later*

Katherine looked out of the plane window, she was beyond tired. Her entire squad was released from the Texas rescue as team two arrived. Her shoulder grew heavy with the weight of Marcus' head resting on her. She was a little sad that they only time she has with her normal partner had been for the plane rides. She knew he worked with a lot of the larger animals; such as the horses and cows in the barns. The male literally passed out as soon as the flight took off and had not moved since.

A voice came over the cabin speakers announcing the flight was coming to the landing point and it was time for everyone to put up their trays and sit their seats up right. She gave two gentle shakes to her partner. "Marcus, wake up buddy. We are home." She whispered in his ear.

A groan of annoyance came from the man as he lifted his head off her shoulder. His tired eyes blinked as he looked at her when they suddenly widened with realization. "Damn Kat, I'm sorry about that." He moved away quickly knowing that the girl was uncomfortable with most human contact as she got catastrophic easily. "It's fine. You were exhausted and I think I'm too exhausted to even care." She stated as she looked back out the window.

As soon as they landed she turned her phone off of airplane mode and waited for any messages. "We are waiting for a gate to be open. We apologize for the delay." The flight attendant's voice came on the loud speaker. Katherine could have pulled her hair out. She just wanted to be in her own bed after a long bath. Instead she loaded her blog up on her phone and began typing a very short and simple update.

July 16th - Each trip is just as hard as the last. The team is worn out, exhausted and basically dead on their feet. However, we continue to do this job. We will witness the pain and sorrow, become the punching bag or shoulder to cry on for those who are so caught up in their loses that they don't know what to do. Even after witnessing the horrors of a natural disaster we can still see the good that comes from our job. Families have been reunited with each other and pets, and though they will have struggles until they are whole again it feels great to be a part of the healing process. Although I am no longer stationed at the temporary shelter I know I made a difference for some people and definitely some animals. I wish the best for the second team and hope they return to their homes with the same feeling of good in their hearts. As for me, I can't wait to get home and rest for a few hours. Work again in the morning and it's good to be home.

It was still a little hard to type with her hand in a bandage after being bitten by that dog; it was no longer swollen but achy. After she posted her entry she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the seat. Her phone vibrated with a new message and she looked down at the screen. There was a text from her brother, Shawn. 'I will be waiting in the parking lot C when you land. Matthew didn't want you to drive home. So happy you're home safe.'

She was thankful for that message, she wasn't going to be driving anyway but now she didn't have to pay for a cab. Another message came into her phone, this one from Penelope.

'I hope work is going okay. I was hoping that we could get together once you get home. I'd like to invite you over for dinner. Let me know what you think. Stay safe.' There was a little heart symbol at the end of the message that made her smile. She saw no harm in texting her back today. 'Penny, just landed back at home actually. Would love to meet up for dinner but I work all week. Want to meet for lunch during the week and dinner this weekend?'

"We're ready to un-board. Please check your seats and in the overhead compartment for stowed away items. Care when opening the overhead compartments as items may have shifted during the flight."

Katherine grabbed her carry-on bag that was at her feet before standing and making her way off the plane. Marcus followed beside her. "Want to split a cab and just crash in the guest room tonight?" He asked. It wouldn't be the first time she took over the spare bedroom after a rescue mission. "Nah, Shawn texted me that he is in lot C. Do you want a ride home?" She asked him. "No, I'm out of his way. I wouldn't want to do that to him. I'll just see you in the morning, bright and early." He deadpanned. "See ya tomorrow Marcus." She stated as they split ways.

A/N: Thoughts?