The end of the semester was approaching much more quickly than I liked, and I can't deny the fact that I became worried about what would happen between me and Penelope once we were no longer forced to spend time together. Our schedules are completely unpredictable and Penelope will be getting insanely busy between cheerleading and classwork. With all of this in mind, I've been thinking more and more lately about asking Pen to move in with me. She practically has been living with me anyway. She spends almost every night at my apartment, has several drawers and half of the closet dedicated to her elaborate outfits, and her textbooks are spread throughout the apartment.

Waking up that morning with her in my arms sold the idea to me even further. I realized then how desperately I want to always have her waking up beside me. I don't want to go a day without seeing her, without holding her, without kissing her, without making love to her. The more time we spend together, the surer I grow that she is the person with whom I want to spend the rest of my life.

A knock at my office door pulls me from my thoughts, and I hope beyond hope that Penelope is the person asking for entrance, pretending that she needs help with the readings this week.

"Come in!" But I have no such luck. In the door walks the absolute last person I wanted to see. "Haley, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you when I knew you wouldn't be with your girlfriend." The way she says the word makes it clear that she both doesn't think that Penelope is my girlfriend and is simultaneously disgusted by the idea that she could be.

"Why? What could you possibly have to say to me?"

"I miss you, Aaron. That was why I came by your apartment the other week. I wanted to tell you how much I miss you. Miss us."

"I don't feel the same. I haven't thought about you for a long time and I haven't thought about you in that way since the moment I found out you were cheating on me."

"Aaron, that was all just a misunderstanding."

"I'm not interested in discussing this. I have no interest in rehashing our relationship. There is no part of me that even wants to see you again. Please leave before you embarrass yourself further." She gets up to leave, and I'm hoping that this is finally going to be over, but before she can leave, there's another knock at the door. No, I think. Please don't be Penelope. But again, I'm completely out of luck today.

"Hi, Mr. Hotchner," she begins, entering the office and looking at the book she's holding, not noticing that Haley is in the room, looking confused. "I was wondering if we could talk about this week's-"

She lets out a small squeak as she looks up and sees that Haley is standing there, now looking victorious and vicious all at once. Her eyes go wide and I can tell that she's thinking about bolting.

"Penelope, Haley was just leaving, so please stay and we can talk."

"Well, Aaron," Haley interjects, "I'm not sure that I am leaving. Especially now. This just got good. She's your student? Aren't there all sorts of rules against that? I wonder what would happen if anyone found out about this. Would you lose your job? Struggle to find a program that will accept you? Maybe never get your doctorate, the thing that you used to say was the one thing you wanted most in the world."

"Some things are more important to me than that."

"Really? She's more important than your doctorate? Than your reputation?"

"No," Penelope interrupts before I can answer. "Aaron, I'm not going to let you lose everything for me. We're done." My jaw drops and out of the corner of my eye, I see Haley looking triumphant. Before I can respond, Penelope is out the door, running as far and as fast as she can from me.

Haley clears her throat in an obvious attempt to get my attention, but my eyes are still fixed on the spot where Penelope was just standing, my mind trying to comprehend all that had happened in the last few seconds.

"Well," Haley begins even though I am not paying attention to her, "now that that's taken care of, I guess there's nothing keeping us from each other."

"Haley, you just ruined the only good thing in my life. Leave now and if I ever see you again, I will have a restraining order placed against you." With that, I move to my desk and begin to gather my things, a plan formulating. I finally hear Haley huff and then exit the office, realizing that what I'm saying is true. I grab the last of my papers and head out of my office, not entirely sure how I'm going to fix this.


I see the door as I round the corner, gathering all of my courage before approaching and knocking. After a few seconds, a familiar figure answers the door, lightly pushes me away from the entrance, and joins me outside the room.

"Derek," I begin, "I know you don't know me and probably don't like me, but I really just need to talk to Penelope. This was all just a huge misunderstanding. I don't want her to leave. That is the exact opposite of what I want. I just want a chance to tell her how much she means to me."

"Look, I get it. Things got out of hand, but my best friend is in there crying her heart out and I don't have it in me to let you in when it could very well lead to more heartache for her. She is the best of people and I don't know the specifics, I don't know exactly what happened, but she's hurting and it's because of you."

"But it's not. She left me! And all because of my terrible ex. My ex has been determined to ruin everything Penelope and I have since she found out that I was seeing someone new. You don't know me, so you don't have any way of knowing how much I love Penelope and how much she means to me, but if you did. If you knew that just this morning, I was thinking about how to ask Pen to move in with me. That this morning I was thinking about how I can't go a day without seeing her and holding her, that a life like that isn't a life I want to live. In that room is the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Please just let me talk to her. Let me make things right."