Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds

The nurse walked down the corridor hastily, she'd never seen abuse so severe in all her years and just from the way Penelope was acting she knew she couldn't leave her to go through this on her own. She walked towards the group of people and smiled sadly.

'I'm really sorry to interrupt.'

'Is Penelope okay?' Derek jumped in and the nurse flinched at his protective growl.

'She's as good as can be right now, but I just think that maybe someone should be down with her, I mean for support.'

'Of course.' Joel agreed, and wanted to hit himself for not trying harder to be there for her. 'I think Derek should go.'

'Me?'

'You told her you loved her back there, go prove it.'

'But you're her brother.'

'Yeah and she knows I love her, seems you have some making up to do.' Joel told him and he sat down showing his decision, he then watched Derek follow the nurse.

Derek followed silently and saw Penelope coming into view, she was in a room on her own, her back was to him, and he could tell from her hunched shoulders that she was hugging a pillow for dear life; it wasn't until he entered the doorway that he saw why. A nurse was treating Penelope's back and his eyes caught the red angry markings of what look like whip marks, without another cognitive thought he headed straight round to the front of Penelope.

Immediately seeing the pain in her eyes as the tears poured freely he crouched down and smiled at her reassuringly. 'Hey baby girl.' He said and she just looked at him sadly. 'How you holding up?'

'I've done better.' She said quietly and closed her eyes with pain.

'You're doing good P.'

'How do you know? You just got here.'

'Because I know you and I know how hard headed you are.' She just smiled a little at him, and he knew she wasn't in the mood for talking. 'You okay with listening to me for a bit?'

'I guess.'

Derek smiled at her again. 'When you can, we're going to get you back to Quantico and we're going to sort this mess out, I meant what I told Andy Baby, I'm keeping you from him, keeping you safe.' He took her hand in his and squeezed it. 'I was seeing a girl before you left.' He said and Penelope began to take her hand back but Derek kept his grip on it. 'Even though I knew you were with Kevin I just couldn't tell you that I was trying to get a future.

I couldn't just tell you that because then it'd been real and the wedge between us would have gotten bigger and I was scared to lose you to it all. So I selfishly got with her and then when you turned up that night, you looked so sad and so beautiful I knew I couldn't keep it going.'

'What's her name?'

'Ashleigh.'

'Pretty name.'

'It's no Penelope eh?' Penelope smiled at him as he pushed a bit of hair back with his free hand. 'I finished with her a couple of days after you went because of something Kevin said to me when we were trying to find you, and then Emily stuck her ore in and that was it, I needed you back.'

'Kevin?'

'Yeah told me and I quote 'I always knew I'd lose her, she was never mine, Derek I hope you appreciate how much she loves you' and I was stunned. How come you said no, was it really because you loved me?'

'Too much.' Penelope said and stared at Derek's familiar features, the ones she'd missed and yearned for. All the while Derek traced the bruises and grazes to Penelope's usually perfect shaded skin. 'I wanted you so much to come and save me.'

'Well it's a good thing we did before it got worse.'

'It sure feels worse at the moment.' She said and buried her head into the pillow as she felt the nurse begin to stitch an area.

'Sorry Penelope, but we're nearly done here and we'll get you covered up and check your ribs.' The nurse said as she heard Penelope's muffled cries.

'Baby look at me.' Derek's soothing tone came. 'Come on P, look up at me.' Penelope slowly looked up and Derek felt his heart clenched as he looked into her eyes. 'Keep looking at me and do nothing but listen to me... got it?'

'Yeah.'

'Right, all the time you were gone, we haven't focused on anything, nothing about the job kept us focused, we were all worried about you, wondering where you were, how you were. After those 3 weeks when you came back and you were so hurt, we just wanted to help but you wouldn't allow it and now we know why. Was it Andy waiting for you?' Penelope nodded. 'Was that why you said it was safer if you left?'

'He told me if I didn't get resigned and out of that building in 30 minutes he'd make sure there wasn't any of me to find.' She said and the tears fell again. 'I just wanted my part in a family.'

'You've always had one princess, well and truly been a part of a family.'

'I should've had a part in that family too, he's my brother.' Penelope whispered back with so much emotion and regret. 'At the beginning I felt like I needed to go through this to get a part but there came a point that I wished I just stayed behind and asked for help. When Andy finally left me alone I just wished I'd never been born so that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to screw up.'

'Baby...'

'Can you believe it; I even prayed that Battle had killed me that night.'

'Pen, you need to listen to me now, you made a mistake but you got out of it, I just need you to realise that you make us lot see that we'd made a mistake to, that we'd not done the job of looking out of you. We just got involved in the jobs and lost tack.' He told her and got a bit closer to her. 'This is nowhere near your fault so do not blame yourself you hear?'

'Yes.'

'Good.' He told her and kissed her gently, scared to hurt her, when he pulled back he looked as the nurse tidied up.

'Right Penelope, we'll get a bandage on this and then we'll reassess your ribs and see if we need to strap them up.' The nurse said delicately. 'Is it painful to breathe at all?

'A little.'

'Okay, well the doctor wants you to keep the deep breaths going to disperse the air.' She saw Penelope shudder. 'We'll get you some more pain meds too, and we'll get you settled upstairs soon.'

'I've got to stay in?' Penelope said almost terrified.

'Hey P, you can have one of us stay with you.' He looked at the nurse. 'She can right?'

'Of course, we'll make the exception.'

'Can you stay with me?' Penelope said and burst into tears. 'Please.'

'Course I can baby girl.' He said and put one hand on her leg and kept one in her hand. 'Anything you want.' He told her and hated how scared she was, how unlike Penelope it was. He then waited as the nurse did what was needed, before getting a doctor and they looked at Penelope's injuries. Derek couldn't believe how mottled her skin was from all the different multitudes of hues, reds, purples, yellows, blues, even blacks. They all marred her usual lily white skin.

As he watched over Penelope, stood as her rock, be the hero she needed his anger bubbled again, he wished he'd killed Andy for this, he wished he'd killed himself for letting this slide into this severity.

What felt like an eternity of pain for Penelope was only an hour before she was curled up in a bed, as small as could be on the bed and she let the warmth of drugs wash through her and cloud her mind and she allowed a peaceful sleep to descend.

Now she felt safe and protected and above all she felt wanted.