Penelope was sitting on the counter in her bathroom doing her makeup and hair she had been here for quite some time now. She had taken a pill an hour ago and now she was blaring David Bowie and singing along carelessly as she got ready.
Her makeup was dramatic even for her, she had dark blue and purple eyeshadow, black winged eyeliner, sparkly glitter around her eyes, and purple lipstick. She loved how the colours looked.
She put her hair half up and half down and tied it in the back with a pink bow.
She checked the time and realized that she was going to be late.
"Frick!" She yelled as she grabbed her bag and rushed out the door.
She got into the car and drove to work, she checked the time when she got out of the car and saw that she in fact wasn't late she was perfectly on time, she didn't give it a second thought though as she walk inside the building still humming happily to the music that was stuck in her head.
When she got off the elevator she vision started going in and out of focus and she couldn't see clearly everything was so fuzzy.
She felt herself bump into something.
"Oh sorry honey." She apologized when she realized that it was Reid.
"Are you ok Garcia?" He asked her. Something seemed off.
"Yeah I'm great." She said with a big smile.
"Come here." He said as he took her by the hand and lead her over to a small room so they would be alone.
"What are you doing?" She laughed.
"Are you dunk?" He asked her.
"Don't be silly! Of course I'm not drunk." She chuckled. "I think I need new glasses I can't see." She said more to herself then to him.
He tilted her head up so he could look at her eyes her pupils were dilated and her eyes were shaking quickly.
He quickly ran different possibilities through his head trying to figure out what was going on. "Did you take something?" He asked concerned.
"Of course not! Don't be silly." She lied with the smile never leaving her face. She was a terrible liar and Spencer knew it.
"I need you to be honest with me Penelope, this is serious I won't be mad or anything but I need to know what it is." He tried but she wasn't budging.
When she didn't answer he came up with a different plan.
"Ok stay here." He told her before going to find Derek.
"Morgan I need your help it's Penelope." He told Derek quietly enough so no one else would hear.
"Is she ok?" Derek asked concerned.
"I don't think so. I think she's on something but she won't tell me what it is." He explained.
"That's ridiculous. There's no way she would do something like that." Derek said.
"Have you seen her." Reid responded, annoyed that Derek was questioning him he just wanted to get back to her quickly.
"Just come on you'll see." He said as he took Derek into the room.
Penelope was pacing around, she felt like her entire body was buzzing she was so busy in her own little world that she hadn't noticed the two other men that had walked in.
Once Derek laid eyes on her he knew that Reid was right.
"Hey." he said softly to get her attention.
"Oh! My beautiful beautiful chocolate god." She said as she hugged him tightly, the physical connection had immediately sent tingles through her body as they hugged.
"Sit down Baby." He told her as her pulled out a chair for her and he sat in front of her.
"What's going on?" He asked.
"Nothing is going on! Everything is so incredibly perfect!" She insisted.
"Come on hon I'm really worried here please just tell me." He practically begged.
"It's just some pills! It's fine." She said.
"What kind of pills?" Reid asked.
"Ecstasy." She finally admitted.
"Do you have any on you?" Reid asked.
She nodded and pulled out and baggie with the colourful pills.
He took them from her despite her protest. She didn't have all of the pills with her, she still had five at her apartment.
"I'm going to get these to the lab to make sure that there's nothing too harmful in them. Take her home make sure she drinks enough water and doesn't over heat." Reid said
"What about h?" Derek asked.
"Don't worry I'll make something up. She doesn't need to lose her job over this."
———
Derek and Penelope were at back at her apartment, Penelope had tried multiple times to tell Derek that she didn't need a babysitter but Derek refused to leave her she was in no state right now to be left alone.
Derek was sitting on the couch and Penelope was lying beside him with her head in his lap staring at the ceiling Derek was gently petting her hair as she watched as colourful patterns danced across the ceiling.
"I drove to work today." She said suddenly, more to herself then to him.
"What?" Derek asked
"I drove to work while I was high on drugs, I could have killed somebody." She said as if she had just now realized that.
"My parents were killed by a drunk driver and I'm stupid enough drive high, what the hell Is wrong with me?"
"Hey, don't talk like that there's nothing wrong with you you made a mistake and you need some help but it's gonna be ok, I know that you don't like to admit it but even you need help sometimes and it's ok." He told her.
She sat up now to look at him.
"I love you." She told him.
"I love you too." He replied
"No that's not what I mean, I mean like I really love you." She said. Then out of nowhere she kissed him and Derek couldn't help but to kiss her back but after he realized what he was doing to made himself pull away even though he really didn't want to.
"We can't do this." He said.
"Why not?" She asked her voice sounded confused and hurt.
"Because Baby you are so not in the right mental state right now to be consenting to anything and I'm not about to take advantage of you like that, I respect you far too much to do that to you." He explained.
"I just wanna be loved." She said.
"You are loved, I love you more then you could possibly understand and when you sober up I'll prove it to you." He said as he took her hand in hers.
"How long has this been going on for?" He asked referring to the drug abuse, hoping that this was just a one time thing.
"I met a guy at the bar after you went off with that girl. He said that I looked sad and that it would help so I took it, it was stupid and impulsive and I immediately regretted it but I didn't know what to do and after a while when it kicked in I felt so happy like nothing was wrong like Emily wasn't dead and everything was so perfect and I just wanted to feel that way forever." She told him smiling.
Derek wanted to kill that guy for giving it to her he was so angry but he was most angry at himself for leaving her alone, he knew that she was upset and drunk but he still left her to go dance with some random girl and then he left her at the bar by herself, he was so lucky that nothing else had happened to her that night this could have been a lot worse and he would have never forgiven himself if he let something happen to her.
"I'm so sorry I left." He said softly.
"Oh don't apologize love, I'm totally fine I'm really happy right now." She said
"Yeah your happy right now because you're high. What's about when it wears off?" He asked.
Penelope just looked down not wanting to think about what happens when she comes down.
"Just please don't leave me." She said seriously.
"I'm not going anywhere I'm staying right here I've got nowhere else to be." He told her.