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A/N: So glad you guys like =) Thanks as always =)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Believing the Devil's Advocate -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"How's Pen?"
Derek shrugged, "I never realised how needy she could be," he moaned as he leant against the desk. "I think once this is sorted and we have the guy that did this then we're going to have to set some boundaries."
"With Penelope?" Kevin asked somewhat shocked. "From what I heard you two were near enough shacking up."
Derek balked, "Unlikely. We're too different. I need someone so different than her and I realised that all the time she's around, I'm never going to find the one, you know, like your Angelica."
"Ahh Angelica," Kevin mused happily as he sat back, "Pen's never gonna be the girl that you can imagine an entire future with. She's not worth that much." He shrugged and turned his chair to look up at Derek, "So did he do a good mess of her?"
"Did who?" Derek questioned.
"Her attacker," Kevin answered plainly, "I mean, I've seen the reports, medical and police ones, and it looks like quite a lot of damage." He continued calmly, "And now the letters, surely that's just going to wind her up in hospital. You'll never get rid of her at this rate, Morgan."
Derek surveyed Kevin's seriousness, and his stomach churned, "Well, mend her up and send her packing, eh man?" Derek said, a slight smirk on her lips. "If anything, I think Emily's death really opened our eyes to a lot of things. A lot of additional freedom, the idea of change." Derek mused.
"Sure did, showed me the love of my life," Kevin chuckled a little, "Maybe, you never know, once you get Penelope off your hip, you might meet the girl that makes you crazy in love. Wouldn't that be the day?"
"Really would," Derek chucked in.
Kevin looked at the computers as they bleeped and turned to them and started to work, even aware of Derek watching over his shoulder. He worked hastily, and vigilantly.
"What you working on?" Derek asked curiously as he looked down at his watch, knowing he had to be heading back to his house soon. "Not over working you too are they?" He joked lightly, "Don't want you heading down the same route Penelope was."
Kevin looked up, "Burn out's not my middle name." He told him truthfully, "Plus, I don't get involved with team mates."
"Believe me, Lynch; I won't be calling you Baby Girl anytime soon." Derek chucked back at him as he straightened up, stretching some, "So what you got going on?"
"Just some team B work," Kevin shrugged, "Nothing much really." He told Derek as he leant down to bottom drawer of the desk and fished around.
Looking down in the drawer as Kevin opened it to grab something, Derek noticed handwriting he noticed, paper he recognised and his gut twisted. His senses sharpened and he needed to remove himself from the room before he let his actions speak louder than his words.
"Run the CCTV tapes again, I know it was broken, but you can go back along the timeline to before the camera was broke. You might be able to get an ID from it, see the attacker as he damaged the camera." Derek instructed as he got ready to leave.
"Where's the fire?" Kevin questioned him suspiciously, making him stop in his tracks.
"Like I said, I need her out of my life," Derek said and left the office, his body seething at what his mind was piecing together slowly. He wanted to get to the heart of why Kevin was after getting rid of Penelope, he might have been no closer to finding that out, but he was sure he had found out that Penelope's main torment was going to stop soon.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Believing the Devil's Advocate -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Derek walked into his house a little heavy hearted. Even though it wasn't conclusive just yet, he had a feeling that Kevin was the one that was making them believe Penelope's attacker was closing in on them. He paused as he closed the front door behind him; he then leant against it and sighed.
He didn't know if telling her would cause her more or less stress. He knew that the latter was the fantasy he would keep until he told her, but for now, he could keep her in the same mind frame. None the wiser.
After all, what she didn't know, didn't hurt her and, God, he didn't want to hurt her further than she already was.
"Derek?" JJ's voice came from the living room and he looked just in time to see her standing in the doorway. "You're back early?"
"Well we did what we needed," He said as he pushed off of the wooden door and went towards her, "How's she doing?"
JJ shrugged nonchalantly, "She's scared, Derek. She's scared, she's in a lot of pain and she feels like she's the one still losing control." JJ looked up into Derek's eyes, her own sorrow matching hers, "I think this might just kill Penelope." JJ felt her eyes water at that, her own fear of seeing Penelope's sparkle disappear happening before her eyes. "I can't lose her."
Derek didn't know what to do then, as he watched his friend begin to cry he stepped in and took JJ in his arms, allowing their anguishes to collide with one another.
As he looked into the living room, he saw that Penelope was sleeping soundly on the couch, her face serene in her slumber, her body protected from the coolness of the house by a blanket, her body completely stilled apart from her slow breathing.
"We only lose Penelope, if we lose," Derek said as he kept his eyes set on Penelope. "She's not going to lose if we can help it."
"How can you say that?" JJ asked in disbelief, "We allowed it to happen once and look where it got us. Our friend injured when she was at one of her all time lowest. She got attacked thinking we didn't think she was capable any longer, that says more about us than her. We found it easy enough to judge her than to help her how we used to. We usually ask each other how we're doing, Derek. We usually actually allow them the chance to scream for help, but the one time we just do and we get it wrong."
"It can only get better," Derek optimised knowing full well that they had hurt Penelope in the worse way possible that they could. How inadequate she had felt in those moments in the run up to her attack, how Kevin had wormed his way into her doubt of them and allowed his words to turn into venom.
Separating, JJ cleared her throat of apprehension, "There was a letter left outside earlier," She simply said and went to the kitchen to retrieve it. She then back to him and passed it over. "That's only gone and put the fear of Christ up her even more."
Derek tore it open, no expectancy to it, no surprise withheld at its potential contents.
I'll be more than your nightmares soon, Penelope
As he read the letters, his mind swamped with the drawer in Penelope's office. He knew what he had to do; he went into Penelope, sat on the edge of the table and slowly ran a hand over Penelope's bruised face, slowly coercing her out of her sleep.
Penelope groaned in discomfort and disapproval of being woken up.
"Baby, I just need a quick question answered and then you can go back to sleep." He asked her and slowly her eyes opened, showing him that the whites had turned red from the stress and watershed she had continually done. He sighed heavily at the adverse effects this was doing, the toll it was taking, the hindrance on her recovery and he vowed in that one exhale that he would make sure he would help her sleep later knowing that she wasn't being targeted.
"What's wrong, Handsome?" She asked him croakily as she sat up awkward, a grunt of pain escaping.
"I want you to lay back down and rest, but I need to know the code for you office." He asked her, knowing she changed it on a regular basis, "I need access to something in your office."
"Derek..." She started to question him as confusion swept her numbed mind.
"Don't ask questions right now, Princess, just trust your man." Within minutes he had the code and after settling her he was out of the door again in a haste that worried Penelope.
Even she knew something big was going down.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Believing the Devil's Advocate -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It didn't take Derek long to get Kevin lured out of the office so he could go in. He needed Kevin out of the way, and Rossi managed to get the perfect distraction; a wild goose chance for a paper based file that didn't exist.
He went into the room and looked at how it had changed, how Kevin was already stamping his claim in Penelope's sanctuary.
Yanking the drawer open he pulled out what he needed, obviously Derek was more than a little trusted by Kevin seeing as nothing had been moved or hidden. He grabbed the notes and read them to himself, 'I can almost smell you again, Penelope', 'He can't always protect you in that house of his', 'You're going to be left alone sometime soon and when you are...'.
Derek felt bile rise in his throat, felt his anger levels sky rocket and he walked out the office and went to Hotch. Handing the stuff over he then went hunting for Lynch and almost smiled in glee as he saw Kevin exiting the elevator alone. Completely oblivious to his impending doom.
"You weedy geek!" Derek ground out, "What the fuck do you think you are playing at messing with her like that. You think you wouldn't be found out? That we wouldn't realise?" Derek asked as he pushed him to a wall and put his hand around his neck, lifting slightly so Kevin was nearing tip toes.
Kevin's throat tightened against Derek's grip, his breaths getting shorter and sharper, "Yo-you to-old me-e," Kevin started and fought against Derek, try to pry him off. He saw Penelope come in behind them, JJ by her side and he knew he had been lied to. In the moment Derek loosened some, he took this moment to have his opportunity, "You told me you couldn't wait to get rid of Penelope from your life. How needy she was, how she wasn't going to help you get a woman that you could love. You even said once she was better you were setting boundaries to get rid of her."
Kevin saw Penelope's heartbroken expression, and then he saw stars as the world went dark.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Believing the Devil's Advocate -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-