Penelope felt like she was walking on clouds when she entered the bullpen the next morning. She and Aaron had decided that it would be best if he went in early, and she would follow when it was closer to her usual start time, so as not to arouse too much suspicion. She had woken up to the feel of him peppering her face with kisses, and it had made her feel absolutely adored. And so, it was easy to hum beneath her breath and smile widely at everyone she saw as she made her way up to her office. Once she was inside, she booted up her computer systems before grabbing her coffee mug and heading down to the break room to fill it.

"I thought that you might like something a little better than office coffee this morning."

Looking up, she found JJ standing there, two tumblers in her hands, and she grinned as she nodded, stepping forward to take the cup from her hand. "Did you have a good night last night?" she asked as they went over to her desk. JJ nodded as she took a seat and pulled out her tablet from her bag before stowing it in her desk. "What did Will do for you?"

"He bought me a new bracelet, made up of our birthstones. I just wish that I could wear it here, but I'm so afraid of losing it if we get called out onto the field that I'll probably only wear it when we're definitely home. And how was your night, PG? Someone was a little anxious to get home the entire flight."

Penelope felt herself blush as she brought her cup to her lips and took a long swallow, trying to think of a way to deflect JJ's gentle ribbing when Erin provided her with the perfect out. "Ms Garcia, I don't mean to pull you away from your free time, but I have a rather urgent computer issue that you might be able to help me with. I tried calling the IT desk, but they said that it would take two or three hours to get to me, since they had a few people call off today. I need to get this report in to the Director by ten, so there's no way that I can wait that long. Could you please help me?"

She felt her face soften into a relaxed smile as she nodded, getting to her feet. "All you had to do was ask nicely, ma'am," she replied as she gave JJ a small wave, trying not to giggle at the shocked look on her friend's face. As she followed after Erin, Emily stepped out of the elevators and gave them a shocked look. "Morning, Em!" she called out, waggling her fingers at the woman and smiling, trying to let her know that everything was okay. Still, her face scrunched up into a frown, and Penelope shook her head as she turned her complete focus onto Erin and her troubles.

"You don't have to try and get her to like me. Her mother and I are acquainted, and since she doesn't particularly care for her mother, that disdain has rubbed off on me. Along with something that I asked of her when she first started with the BAU. I chose her for the team, since I knew her mother, and I was hoping that, well, that doesn't matter now, it's water under the bridge."

Penelope nodded as they stepped into her office, Erin closing the door behind them. "All right, so what seems to be the problem?"

"I think that I might have gotten a virus on the hard drive, since it seems to just keep giving me errors. Would you please see if you could save any of my data?"

She nodded as she took a seat behind the computer and began to tap away on the keyboard, quickly finding out that Erin was correct in her assessment. "So, what link did you click on in your email that you shouldn't have?" she asked, trying not to sound frustrated, even though she was. There was at least an hour's worth of work ahead of her, and she took a deep breath before turning her head to look at Erin. The woman was blushing deeply, and Penelope reached out to pat her arm.

"I thought that it was a link from one of my children. I realized as soon as I clicked on the link that there was something wrong, but it was too late."

"It's happened to everyone, Erin. And at least your computer isn't a brick, I can salvage this. However, we do have a slight problem."

"And that would be?"

"It's five after eight, and the earliest I can promise you that this will be completed is half past nine. Unless you were close to finished, I don't think your report is going to be ready by ten. I mean, I try to be a miracle worker, but even I have my limits. Tell you what," she said as she dug some money out of her pocket and thrust it at Erin, "get us some sweet pastries and come back, and see how I've progressed. I think that I will do a little better if you aren't hovering. I know that you mean well, but the tension makes me feel like I'm going to mess up, and I need to have my full concentration on the task at hand." She picked up a pen from Erin's desk and held it above her hand. "And what is the name of the file you were working on, and what program were you using for it?"

Erin quickly rattled off the information she needed, and Penelope took it down before nodding and turning her attention back to the monitor, her fingers flying as fast as possible as she listened to Erin leave the room. Letting out a deep sigh, Penelope frowned as she leaned back in the chair, feeling like she wanted to cry. There was so much work to be done, and she wanted to get it done as quickly as possible for her friend. Taking another long sip of her coffee, she cracked her neck as she continued to tap away at the keyboard.

A soft knock sounded on the door, and she looked up to see Helen standing there. "Yeah?"

"Agent Hotchner wanted to see you, Penelope. Are you at a place where you can talk to him?"

She nodded before starting to work once more. "Yeah, I should be fine to talk and work. Thanks, Helen." Penelope listened to the familiar sound of Aaron's feet enter the room. "Sorry, I need to do this for her, honey. Besides, I don't trust the IT guys not to grumble about what happened behind her back, and she doesn't need that. I hope that you can run the briefing without me?"

"I suppose, but how long do you think you'll be?"

She glanced up at him, seeing the frustrated look on his face, and shrugged a little. "I told Strauss that I might be done by half past nine, but from the way things are looking? It will probably be closer to ten. You should probably bring Kevin in to help with the beginning of this case, and I'll take over for him as soon as I'm done. All right?"

"I suppose. But that means I'll leave before getting to say goodbye to you."

"Well, say goodbye now, then. Strauss is doing a bakery run for us, and shouldn't be back too quickly." He gave her a small nod before coming around the desk and leaning down, pressing his lips against her cheek in a soft kiss. "Stay safe out there, darling. After all, we've only made love once, I want to experience that a million times over."

He chuckled a little before kissing her once more. This time, she turned her head quickly enough to press her lips against his, smiling against his mouth as he fought to keep from deepening the kiss. Finally, he pulled away from her, and caressed her cheek before heading back to the door. "I'll try to fulfill all your wishes, Penelope."

The way he said those words made her squirm in her seat a little, and she shooed him out with her hand so that she wouldn't distract herself once more. As soon as the he had closed the door, she let out a deep sigh and began to get back down to work once more. It seemed like once she made progress one way, another line of code would corrupt, leading to a cascade failure that she had to quickly fix before everything deteriorated into chaos. Soon, her coffee was gone, and it looked like she was only a quarter of the way done with her work.

"How is it going?"

Her head darted up to see that Erin was sitting on her desk, watching her intently, and let out a deep sigh. "It's worse than I thought, but I am making headway. What did you get?"

"Muffins? I thought that they would be a tiny bit healthier than doughnuts or cupcakes."

"As long as you didn't get anything weird like bran. I'm not too keen on bran."

Erin laughed as she shook her head. "No, I bought blueberry, chocolate, lemon poppyseed, pumpkin, cinnamon apple, and honey pear. I thought I'd let you choose the two you want, and then I'll let Helen choose the two she'd like, and I'll take the last two."

Penelope nodded and opened the bag, breathing in the delicious scent of fresh baked goods. "I'm taking the honey pear and the lemon poppyseed," she said as she reached in and pulled out the tray that held them, guessing which was the honey pear, and hoping she was right, otherwise she'd end up with the apple one. Erin nodded as she took the tray back from her, heading back out to Helen while Penelope began to eat the first muffin as she tapped away at the keyboard, hoping that she would make more progress soon, so that Erin could go into her meeting without getting into trouble.