I don't own Criminal Minds or anything even remotely affiliated with the show. If ONLY I was so fucking cool. Instead, I own a ton of nail polish and some really funky shoes.


Part twenty-nine:


July 10, 2012
7:36 AM PDT

As much as she would like to have denied it, the thought of going back to work was giving Penelope indigestion – and she hadn't even gotten breakfast yet. Hotch and Rossi bought a box of danishes and large cups of coffee for the team, but she'd made a beeline for the coffee and avoided the sugary pastry trap. It's a trap! She briefly wondered how Derek managed not to put on any weight, though, as he dove into the pastry box with a boyish grin on his face – probably the last smile of the day.

"You gonna eat something, Mama?" he asked.

"Not out of that box," Penelope grumbled.

Rossi smirked. "That's why I brought you an English muffin and egg sandwich," he said, holding out a small bag. "Don't ever say I don't take care of you, kiddo."

Penelope smiled and took the bag. "Thanks, but I'm not really hungry."

"A piece of advice, Penelope?" Hotch said. "Don't let the bastards get you down. You know why you're here, and if they don't like it, they can suck it."

"Whoa, that's some strong language from our fearless leader," Emily said with a snort. "But he's right."

"Oooh, danishes," Reid said as he joined them, diving into the box. "Did anyone else have trouble sleeping last night?"

"Not so much, no," Penelope muttered.

"Oh, well – I couldn't turn my brain off," Reid said. "I kept thinking about the geographic profile v. the victimology v. the actual psychology behind the killing and, to be honest, something isn't right. I think we're missing something in the big picture."

"We're probably missing a lot in the big picture," JJ said, nursing her coffee tiredly. "Unsubs don't just leave us notes saying 'this is why I'm doing it' and 'this is where I'm dumping the next body'."

"Except this unsub has been leaving notes," Rossi reminded them. "Mind you, notes that make no sense to anyone but him – ramblings about things that happened between him or her and the target of their actual rage…"

Penelope sighed. "And this is another reason I'm not hungry. I'm just waiting for you guys to break out the crime scene photos."

Hotch cracked a smile. "You can kill a man in the blink of an eye, but you can't look at crime scene photos," he teased.

"One is real – the other isn't real to me," Penelope muttered. "And the less real it is, the more my mind fills in the blanks."

"Oh, that's no good," Emily said, wrinkling her nose. "This blackberry danish is kind of gross, by the way –"

They finished their early breakfast and team meeting relatively quickly, then adjourned to the police station. They were definitely earlier than most of the normal staff – thank god, because it gave Penelope the chance to avoid Devon. She settled into her purloined office and began going over the data she'd harvested the night previous. One thing about being a hacker – she could seriously destroy someone without much effort. She was hoping and praying that it would be so easy with this unsub.

She glanced up with the door knob turned, then she steeled herself for the worst. "Captain Garcia," she greeted in an even, unstressed tone that she'd been practicing in her head all morning, "I apologize for absconding with your office –"

"Save it," Chuck muttered. "I'm just here to get something and then I'm out." He fished around in one of the desk drawers and pulled out a pair of oversized sunglasses. "I won't interfere with your work if you don't interfere with mine, Agent Garcia."

She opened her mouth to make a smart-ass remark, then closed it again with an audible sigh. "Fine, sir. Please route all communication requests through Agents Rossi or Morgan," she said in a clipped tone. She glanced up when she felt his gaze upon her, and said, "What? What did I do now to piss you off except exist in your space again?"

"You look just like your mother," Chuck said, then he was out the door and gone.

Penelope picked up the stapler and slammed it down on the desk. "If one more person tells me I look like my fucking dead mother, I'm going to teach them the fucking meaning of PAIN," she growled in fury, seething as she began to comb through the collected data from the night before.

She was most of the way into a fascinating breakdown of the internal schematics of the servers that hosted the dating site when her phone rang. "Morgan's House of Horrors – you stab 'em, we slab 'em… what can I help you with, Boy Genius?"

"Garcia, we have another body," Reid said. "Or pieces of one – and a USB drive with a note attached that says 'For Blondie'. We need you to go over the contents of the drive."

Penelope felt the blood draining from her face. "Oh. Oh god." She checked to make sure her weapons were still handy and within reach. "He has to be close to the investigation if he knows the person running tech has blonde hair."

"Yes," Reid agreed. "Hotch is sending Emily back to the station to act as your bodyguard while the rest of us follow leads in the field. No one goes in or out of the office you're in until Prentiss gets there, all right?"

"Does Derek know what's going on?" Penelope asked, getting up and walking to the window, peering through the blinds at the bustle of the station beyond the windows. She couldn't see anything unusual, but that didn't keep her from locking eyes with Devon before she stepped away.

"Yes. He's practically crawling the walls over here. Just try to remain calm and stay in the office until Emily gets there."

"Right," Penelope murmured. "Easier said than done, knowing that a psycho could be just on the other side of the glass at the zoo."

"You have your gun – and your knife," Reid reminded her.

"True," she agreed. "And… fuck. My coffee's out. Detective Williams should be sending someone in with a fresh cup in a few minutes. How do I explain why the door is locked?" she asked rhetorically, moving to lock the door – only to find that the lock was broken. "Shit. The door doesn't lock."

"The unsub most likely won't try anything if you keep things normal," Reid advised. "Let them bring you the coffee, keep working –"

"Easy for you to say," Penelope muttered.

"Emily will be there in fifteen minutes," Reid said. "It'll be okay."

"My first case in the field and I'm already feeling the urge to hide in my office and never come out again," Penelope said with a sigh. "I don't need a bodyguard –"

"Maybe not, but you shouldn't be alone," Reid reasoned. "I have to go. Please don't do anything crazy."

"I won't," she promised. She hoped she would be able to keep that promise.

Instead of pacing the office, she slipped back behind the desk and spent the next few minutes setting up the secondary webcam and hiding it – just in case. If anything happened, the room feed would be recorded onto the FBI mainframe and uploaded to the BAU tablets. It wasn't difficult to program or execute, and she felt a little more secure even just doing that. It would only take a simple couple of keystrokes to enable the cascade.

She barely glanced up when there was a knock on the door. "Leave the coffee on the desk," Penelope instructed. "And make sure that Detective Williams knows I'm not to be disturbed after Agent Prentiss gets here."

It took her a moment to realize that there wasn't a new mug of coffee on the desk. And it took exactly two seconds more to comprehend that the profile was at least partially wrong.

"Put your gun on the desk," the policewoman said, "and push it toward me."

Penelope knew if she didn't comply, she was very likely to get shot again, so she did exactly what she was bidden. "I'll do what you ask," she said very quietly.

"Did I tell you to fucking talk?" the policewoman hissed.

"No," Penelope replied, trying to assess the situation before Emily arrived and walked into a hornet's nest. "Can I –"

"Close the computer and shut it down," the woman said. "It's going with us."

"I'm not going anywhere," Penelope said in an unyielding tone. "You can take the laptop, though – it's junk. I need a new one."

"Shut the fuck up."

Penelope exhaled lowly and set the sequence under the guise of shutting down the laptop. Once it was done, she closed the lid held up her hands in submission.

"Pick up your phone," the woman ordered, gesturing with her sidearm. "And dial the one person you love most – because you're going to tell them goodbye."

Penelope picked up the iPhone and thought for a moment before she dialed Emily.

"Hey, I'll be there in five –"

"I need you to do me a favor," Penelope said very quietly. "Tape Declan's game for me and put it on YouTube. I'm not going to be there. And tell the kids I love them." She hung up and looked up at the unsub, tears springing into her eyes on cue. Fake it till you make it, as she'd been told so many, many times.

She knew Emily would be on the phone to the others in seconds – it was an old code, but it was theirs. It was the only way to ensure that no one else came into the room. But that meant that Penelope was on her own, one way or another.

"What the hell was that?" the woman demanded.

"You told me to call the person I love most," Penelope muttered. "But I can't because my children are across the country and in school – "

The butt of the gun slammed into the side of her head. She didn't realize she'd blacked out till she was coming to and found herself on the floor. "Fuck," she muttered.

"Oh, look, Blondie's awake," the unsub said snidely, grabbing Penelope by the hair and hauling her up from the floor. "Your little friends are out there, trying to find a way in here, I'm sure – that bitch Prentiss looks like she's going to shoot the windows out."

"You know you're not leaving this room alive," Penelope pointed out through gritted teeth. Her head hurt so badly and she was seeing triple – not even her glasses could right the dizzying sway of the room.

"Of course I'm not – but the point is, neither are you," the woman sneered. "You all think you're so smart, but you didn't know that I was female… or in law enforcement."

"Profiles aren't always right," Penelope whispered. "Please let go of my hair. I'm going to throw up –"

"Do it and I'll shoot you," the woman warned, tightening her grip on Penelope's hair till Penelope registered that the scream she heard ringing in her ears was her own.

She was in an untenable position: injured, physically dominated, and alone. She had made sure that no one was coming into the room. If there was a casualty, it would just be her.

"Why are you doing this?" Penelope croaked when the pain became as normal as breathing.

"Because the fat, ugly girls don't deserve anything but to be put out of their misery," the woman hissed. "Are you telling me that someone actually fucked you? Because you're just a piece of shit."

"I'm sure my husband would disagree with you on that," Penelope said. This time, the blow didn't surprise her, and she definitely wasn't surprised when her return to consciousness was being hauled up from the floor by her scalp again. She felt blood trickling down her face into her eye and bit back a torrent of foul language at the stinging that left her all but blind in her right eye.

She heard the blinds get raised and then fall again. Presumably, she was on display as a trophy, a showpiece – look at what I can do. Penelope swallowed her pride and closed her eyes, knowing that the end would come quickly if she could just get the woman to let her go for just a minute.

The door opened and she heard a voice, soothing and not at all rough, say, "I'm unarmed. I know you're angry with Penelope – and all the other women you've hurt – but you need to let her go. She has a family."

"Do you really think I give a FUCK?" the woman snapped, releasing her hold on Penelope long enough to shoot the intruder.

It was enough.

Penelope rolled, ignoring the dizziness and the nausea and the blood, pulling her knife from its sheath on her thigh, plunging it into the woman's thigh, severing the femoral artery in a jagged cut. The unsub got off one more shot, but then she was on the floor and Penelope took the chance to grab the gun and put a bullet between her eyes – despite her vision, she managed it somehow. Then she was stumbling toward her father, who was sitting against the door.

She didn't make it but a couple of steps before she collapsed. The carpet was scratchy and she couldn't move anymore. She really needed to fucking retire to a desk job forever. She was way too old for this bullshit. Concussions and being scalped with someone's bare hands were injuries for the young pups. She wanted to die from carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis.

"Thank god for Kevlar," Rossi was saying as they helped him off the floor. "Get the medics – Penelope's not moving."

She tried to make her mouth work but her body wasn't having any of it. She went along with the paramedics, only realizing after she was on the stretcher with Derek's hand clasped firmly around hers that her glasses had been gone since she'd blacked out the second time. "Baby Girl, no more field work for you," Derek joked softly in the ambulance.

"Nuh-uh," she finally managed to force out.

"You're gonna be fine," he promised. "Just relax."

She hated that she could feel the blood on her hands and on her head – and, damn it, all over her shoes and her favorite dress. But she knew that it would be okay once the headache passed and she had clean clothes to change into.

A couple of hours later, she was tucked up in a hospital bed with an IV drip of powerful painkillers and a loopy grin on her face. It was a pretty bad concussion, but as long as she didn't show any signs of a brain bleed by morning, she was good to get the hell out of the hospital and go home and do things that didn't involve physical combat.

"Hot Stuff, I wanna make out, but I can't feel my lips," Penelope giggled, using her fingers to push on her lips to emphasize the point. "I might be a little stoned," she admitted.

"Only a little?" Derek teased, kissing her forehead. "Your dad's going to be fine – he's just got a bruise."

"I told Emily to keep everyone out," Penelope pouted.

"He saw you and lost it," he whispered. "I lost it – I almost went through the window before Hotch and JJ held me back. But Rossi just put on his Kevlar and said he'd be damned if he was going to lose his daughter to another fucking psycho. And he walked in there bold as brass balls."

Penelope sighed then giggled. "I have more balls than the men on the team!"

Derek rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yes, dear," he said, defeated.

"Did you guys get my video feed?" she asked, suddenly remembering.

"Yes," he said simply.

"It was insurance," she mumbled.

"Hey, now, no sleeping for you," Rossi said as he came into the room. "Derek, why don't you go get some coffee and let the others know what's going on?"

"Dad," Penelope said, cursing herself for being weak when she started crying at the sight of the man who took a bullet for her.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Rossi assured her, pulling her into a hug. "I'm fine, Kitten. A little sore, but okay – but I hear you have something not quite right with your head."

"Yeah, it hurts like someone hit me with a brick wall," she mumbled, swiping at her eyes. "And my scalp burns like a son of a bitch – I have a bald spot in the back of my head. I'm so embarrassed."

"Hair grows back," he assured her. "It'll be okay, Penelope. I promise."

"And I'm flying high on whatever's in this IV," she said, tugging at the tubing.

"Hey, stop that," Rossi scolded. "You just lie still and behave. You really did something brave and foolish today, little girl –"

"Not foolish," Penelope said. "You just walking in there when I specifically told Emily no one was supposed to come in –"

"She was going to kill you, Penelope."

"I know," she sighed in exasperation. "But she SHOT you."

"Penelo-"

"I knew she was going to hurt anyone coming in that door," Penelope interrupted him sharply. "I would rather her hurt me than any of you. I can take it. But if I lost any of you – I couldn't. And if Derek walked in there – Daddy, I –"

"Stop," Rossi ordered, pushing her hair back out of her face, examining the butterfly stitches on her forehead. "You are the sweetest woman I'm ever going to know, but I'm going to kick your ass if you don't shut up and rest."

She huffed and pouted, but was amused when he kissed her forehead where the stitches were. Derek had done that earlier in a gesture reminiscent of her mother kissing wounds in her childhood. "I'm an adult, Dad," she said in a firm tone, despite the fact that she felt a little like limp spaghetti. "I had to make a choice."

"Right now, the only choice I want you making is the one where you rest," Rossi sighed. "And stop choosing to put yourself in danger. I only just found you, for god's sake – I refuse to have you taken away."

"I don't want to be in the field anymore," Penelope said. "I just want to sit back in my office and be bored. I like that much better."

"Good girl," he praised, smiling. He glanced up at the doorway and frowned. She tried to turn her head to look, but got dizzy mid-process and closed her eyes. "Captain Garcia, we requested immediate family only –"

"She's my sister, for god's sake. And if it's immediate family, what gives you the right to –"

"She's my daughter," Rossi said, losing his cool. "After the way you treated her yesterday, I think Penelope made it pretty damn clear where you rate on the scale of her family."

"Dad, stop," Penelope said softly, putting her hand on his arm to restrain him. "Just stop. This has to end. And maybe it's good that I'm out of it while I'm saying this, but I think maybe I was wrong and I should listen to Captain 'I'm a jackass'. Can you wait outside a few minutes? You can listen and step in any time you want, but –"

"Kitten, are you sure that's what you want?" Rossi asked, his eyes filling with confused frustration – with her or the situation or what, she couldn't tell… only that he was frustrated.

"I think so, yeah," she murmured. "I'll be fine."

Rossi lifted up his hands in surrender. "Okay, Kitten – I'll wait outside," he said. "But you'd better believe I'm in here in a split second if –"

She smiled. "Daddy, I'm stoned, not incapable," she reminded him. Besides, she could easily strangle someone with her IV tubing if she had to.

"Right – I keep forgetting," he said with a wan smile. "What with the shooting and the knife-wielding and killing people with shoes and all." Rossi got up and went to the doorway. "So help me god, if you so much as raise your voice, Captain, I will be in here like the wrath of fucking GOD and you will not get a chance to explain yourself," he said through clenched teeth.

"Dad," Penelope sighed, "would you please just wait outside? I'm not a little princess anymore – let me handle my own battles."

Chuck approached the bed, finally, and sat down on the uncomfortable chair, wincing. "How the hell do people sit in these?" he muttered.

"I don't know, but Dad and Derek got over it pretty quickly the last time I was in the hospital." Penelope's smile faded around the edges, but she kept it on for his benefit.

"The last time – how many times have you –"

"Too damn many – I need to retire to my cave and stay there because no one can hurt me online," she replied cheerfully. "I see you inherited your dad's bald spot."

"I see you inherited your mom's ability to deliver a low blow," Chuck challenged.

"Nah, that's years of training – this girl had to learn it the hard way," she teased softly. "When I left your place that night, I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do. But now? I've had enough experiences to last a lifetime. I've killed more people than I ever wanted to. I've got three incredible kids and a husband who worships the ground I walk on – and I found my real father, Chuck. And he's a good man. I've got everything I could have really wanted, and all because I picked up my pride and let you kick me out the door."

"I knew the next morning that I made a huge mistake," he sighed, scratching the top of his head and frowning. "But I couldn't find you, no matter how hard I tried."

"Because I blocked your searches and made sure they went nowhere," she said. "You accused me of being the reason our parents were dead. And I already believed I was – so it was a logical progression. I went off the rails for a while there, till the CIA picked me up. Agent Prentiss was my partner for almost four years, and after that, I was undercover and underground for almost ten. I'm not ashamed to say that you made my life better for throwing me out on my ass." Penelope smiled shakily. "Like I said: I have three beautiful kids, a husband who loves me, and a family that I wouldn't trade for all the tea in China."

"You worked for the CIA?"

She chuckled. "Is that so difficult to believe?"

"To be honest, yeah," Chuck said, his frown deepening. "How on earth did you manage –"

"I'm a computer hacker," she said simply. "I crack code, write code, encode, decode, recode, and some days, I run searches for the team. But most of the time, I'm screwing around. The CIA caught me cracking one of their most secure databases and rather than prosecuting me, made me one of them. And when I got out of purgatory, I moved to the FBI, where I use my talents for good."

"That explains why I couldn't find you."

She nodded. "I didn't want you to, so I didn't let it happen. As far as you and the other three were concerned, I didn't exist anymore. I figured if you were so mad at me for what happened, why wouldn't Jim, Brad, and Juan be, too?"

"They never blamed you. I did, because I had to ID the bodies and I knew you'd skipped curfew."

"If I hadn't skipped out, they would still be alive," Penelope murmured, "but if I hadn't skipped out, I would have throttled my mother with my bare hands. She was off her head, off her meds, and she pushed my last button. I had to get out of the house. I never wanted them to die, Chuck. You know that."

"I always knew it wasn't your fault," he admitted. "I just lost my temper. And I've had fifteen years to think about what I did, and I still fucked it up when you came back."

She stifled a chuckle. "I can't believe you told Derek to get his hands off me," she said.

"I didn't know you two were married," he defended. "They introduced you as Garcia –"

"So there wasn't more confusion with two Morgans on the team," she said with a tiny smile.

"Right – but he was getting all grabby and I went into overprotective big brother mode."

She laughed outright then. "Oh, please – you weren't the overprotective one. Brad's the one that sat Devon down and brought the wrath of god to the table."

Chuck snorted indelicately. "Ironic, isn't it? That I ended up with your ex."

She shrugged. "It's okay. You love who you love, and you're not meant to fight it or explain it."

"Yeah, well, it's made more than one person question whether or not I'm qualified to lead this station – especially when Devon is here, too. I have to tread a very fine line and not show any kind of favoritism or come down too hard on him so it's perceived as harassment."

Penelope nodded. "I think it's the same way with Derek and me, but the difference is that we're into sexually harassing each other in front of people," she said with a weary wink. "I could use a cup of coffee about now – before I fall asleep."

"No falling asleep," Rossi groused from the doorway. "You have to stay up at least five more hours, then you have another scan."

Penelope pouted at him. "I'm so tired, Dad –"

"Did she do this when she was a kid?" Rossi asked Chuck. "Whine till she gets her way?"

Chuck smiled. "All the time, Agent Rossi – all the time."

"You're not supposed to gang up on me," Penelope whined. "I'm the patient here –"

"Yeah, a mental patient," Derek said from behind Rossi. "You still haven't told me what the hell you were thinking, taking on the unsub by yourself, Baby Girl –"

"You don't want to hear her lame-ass explanation," Rossi told him.

She sighed and futzed with the IV tubing again. "Stop picking on me," she muttered.

"Hotch wanted to read you the riot act," Derek said, "but I reminded him that you get hostile when people are yelling at you – and after what you did today, the last thing he needs to do is get you worked up." He glanced at Chuck as he came into the room. "By the way, does this mean that you two are reconciling?"

"It means I'm stoned and making an effort," Penelope grumbled. "But I'll never forgive him completely."

"I'm not asking you to," Chuck said. "Just as long as you don't disappear again."

"She's not disappearing anywhere," Derek said firmly. "And if she tries it, there will be hell to pay."

"Not going anywhere, Hot Stuff," she assured him with a smile. "I couldn't imagine you raising the heathen children by yourself."

Derek snorted slightly. "Believe me, neither can I," he admitted. "How's your head, Goddess?"

"Hurts like hell," she replied cheerfully. "And the drugs aren't helping much with the pain – however, they're making me really sleepy, which is not good, since I'm supposed to be staying awake."

"So we're just going to have to take turns entertaining you," Rossi said with a smile.

"Emily's pacing the waiting room like a tiger," Derek said, sipping his coffee. "Maybe we should let her keep Pen company while we go start our case paperwork?"

"Oh, yes, please!" Penelope said.

"I should get back to the station and start supervising the clean-up," Chuck said. "But if your team can stay a couple days, maybe help profile a couple other small cases, I'll definitely make it worth your while."

"Talk to Hotch," Rossi said. "Morgan and I will definitely be staying with Penelope; the rest of the team is free to go as soon as Hotch says they are."

Penelope stifled a yawn. "Better get Em in here before I crash," she advised. "At least we'll be able to play poker or something."

"Have you ever played poker with her?" Chuck was asking Rossi as they left the room. "She's a frigging card shark –"

Penelope smiled over at Derek. "Hey," she murmured, "wanna share that coffee with me? I keep fading."

"No can do," Derek replied. "It'll interfere with things."

She pouted yet again, then sighed. "I know you're pissed at me for what I did, but I didn't have a choice –"

"Stop talking, Baby Girl," he insisted. "Just sit back and chill."

"Fine," she muttered, trying to get more comfortable. "I hate hospitals."

"So stop getting yourself put into a hospital bed," Derek advised.

She almost laughed at the simplicity of the statement, but it was glaringly obvious – blindingly so.