Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds
The team agonised over how they were going to master getting Penelope home, all they knew was that she was going home and that she had one brother following soon after, the other two keeping a pretty low profile.
2 days after Penelope's first session, she was sleeping off a new round of pain meds as the two unheard of, unseen brothers arrived. Derek was doing his usual and acting protector with Hotch and Joel as Gargoyle's.
'Joel.' One asked warily and Joel jumped from his seat immediately.
'What the hell are you doing here?' He said and walked towards them. 'Now you want to face the music, now she's out safe?' He asked them, his emotions over the whole predicament growing and releasing how he'd wanted it to. 'Now she's laid up you want to know?'
'Joel, it was hard.' One of them stated as Hotch and Derek looked on tensely.
'It was hard? You know what was really fucking hard? Was watching our baby sister go through hell, what was hard was watching her suffer and accept it because she felt she needed to go through all of that to get a family, our family might I add.' He said, not realising that Penelope was watching on sleepily. Her mind not quite with it, her body sleeping on and off, letting her mind doze. 'You want to know what he did to her while you two were just too scared to help me help her?'
The two brother's just watched Joel, not wanting their attention to divert in any way.
'That bastard, the so called brother of ours, abused her so badly that she was in and out of the hospital with cuts and bruises, and burns and broken bones and now she's here with so many injuries that I hold not only Andy responsible for but you two as well.' They flinched at that claim, and they watched the tears pour down Joel's face, angry tears, belated tears, regretful tears. 'You had your chance to help me get her out but you didn't want to get involve so you left her and that makes you as bad as him. She's never done anything and don't you dare bring up mom and dad, she had every right to cope with their deaths as much as we did.
She came back to us, did Andy shed that little piece of information with you? She came back to us, looking for a family but he gave her an ultimatum and now this is where it's gotten us! A brother in prison and our sister in hospital. I hope for the sake of it you sleep better at night knowing that you had a hand in it.'
'Joel...' Penelope's voice rang out raspy. 'Come here.' She said and tried to sit up, Derek immediately helping, Hotch passing over the pillows. 'Now.'
He turned and walked to her. 'Sorry if I woke you.' He told her and took her hand in his.
'You didn't.' She lied but continued on. 'Don't get angry, I need you to not get angry.'
'I'll try not to but it's difficult.'
'I get that but come on, soon I'll be home, you've seen me get up and about.'
'I've seen your bad days.'
'That coincide with the good days, it's a bumpy road but it's going to happen one way or the other.' She smiled at him reassuringly. 'I mean come on, I've got this man here to protect me, I've got my own little army just don't get angry.' She said suggesting Derek outright as her main body guard in the room.
'It's the only thing I feel like doing right now.' Joel admitted, he felt at a proper loose end with her in the state she was. Like he could've tried harder to get her out, he could've got them to help him if he'd just tried harder.
'Derek will give you the best brand of punch bags for that type of anger management.' She quipped and kept it casual and calm. 'Come on help me up.'
'Pen, what are you up to?'
'Help me up.' He gave in then and helped her up, he then watched her walk towards her brother's slowly and painfully. 'So what's brought you here now?'
'It's all over the news.'
'So it took publicity to get you to come?'
'No!' They both said together.
'Well from the way I see it, you two don't really want to be here. So what is the reason?'
'To make amends.'
'To make amends? Well you're going to have to come to me because I am never coming back here again.' The two men looked down ashamed. 'You could've, like Joel said, helped me out, I called you to help me but you didn't want to know so why should I know now?'
'Just hear us out.'
Penelope sighed, she knew this was a bad idea; her head was still woozy, her legs felt weak as the pain ebbed in from the cuts and breaks her body still sported. 'I can't.'
'Why not?'
'Because I wanted my family, what I got was one brother from it.'
'We can make it better?'
'How?' Penelope said and Derek must have picked up on her uneasiness as he stepped up behind her and supported her. 'I'm not ever going to forget this, not in a lifetime, I'm going to have to live with this, what he did and I'm always going to know that you didn't even bother to stand up and protect me like you should've.'
'Baby girl, let's not get you stressed out.' Derek told her, he was worrying from her lacking composure. 'This is not what you need right now.' He told her and she collapsed into his arms as all the energy just left her body. 'Come on you back onto the bed.'
'No, they need to hear this.' She said as she grabbed him and held onto him. 'What I'm saying is that you've got to do more than just turn up when the damage is done, you need to earn my trust and this isn't going to cut it. I need to know that you're all in and I'm not going to make it easy for you.' She told them blankly. 'I don't want you to keep telling me how sorry you are, or how you could've done this, or that. It's done and we can only move on and that's what I'm doing.'
'I'm sorry, I'm calling shots now.' Derek interrupted her speech as slowly got more dependent on him; he just scooped her up and sat her on the bed.
Joel then resumed his point of call. 'I'll call you when she's ready, not before. We're gonna do this Pen's way, not yours.' He told and then walked out with them as they could only accept the one offer.
'I did do the right thing right?' Penelope asked looking up at Derek and Hotch. 'I mean, keeping them at a distance.'
'You need time to heal Penelope, the only way to do that is at your speed not everyone else's.'
'So is snail speed allowed?' She asked with a twisted grin on her lips, she was in the mood to joke about serious matters once again. Ease other people's tensions in order to release hers.
