AN: Rollercoaster is climbing to a crescendo again…very angsty couple of chapters ahead.

I own nothing.

Derek's phone rang at 12:47 Wednesday afternoon, seven weeks after the abduction. Hotch wanted him to come in for a meeting. Since he was due to start back at work next week he had been expecting the call. Penelope urged him to go and not worry about her; they had barely been apart for more than ten minutes the past month and a half. She hadn't been able to breathe without Derek hearing it and she was looking forward to having a moment of solitude. She assured him she was fine and would be fine until he got back home. Derek kissed her cheek and was out the door.

Five minutes after Derek left, Penelope was sitting on the couch, drowning in the silence. Even though it was annoying to have her chocolate God looking over her shoulder 24/7, it was quiet. Now that there was absolutely no noise, Pen found her head full of thoughts that she didn't want to be thinking. She decided to run to the grocery store because the pantry was a little bare. She grabbed her purse and was out the door, not even stopping to leave a note in case Derek got home ahead of her.

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Derek got to the office and after saying hello to the others, made his way to Hotch's office. Entering the room, he was surprised to see Penelope's therapist, Dr. Carly Levin, sitting in one of the chairs. Derek took the other, worry etched on his face. "Hotch, what's going on?"

"I asked for this meeting," Dr. Levin told him. "I needed to discuss this with her boss but I'm including you because you are probably the best equipped to deal with it. However, I am going to pretend you are not here because I am breaking the law by sharing her personal information with you. But, this is what's best for my patient and I will stand by that if I need to."

"Dr. Levin, please tell us what is so bad you are willing to risk losing your license," Hotch said. "Preferably before Agent Morgan bursts a blood vessel." His small joke accomplished its goal of making Derek calm down for a moment.

"Please, call me Carly, I feel like I know you two, and the others on the team, as well as I know my own friends. All Penelope has done for the last two months is talk about you guys. I heard about Hotch's wife and Derek almost blowing up, Reid being kidnapped, Emily dying and many other intimate facts about all your lives. What I know nothing about is what happened for the two days Penelope was held and tortured."

Both men looked at her, astonished. Hotch was the first to regain his voice, "Are you saying that Penelope has not once talked to you about what happened?"

When Carly shook her head, indicating that she hadn't been told anything, Derek asked incredulously, "What about the time she came out of your office and you had both been crying?"

"Let me start at the beginning," Carly said. "For the first few visits it was just general chatting and getting to know each other. She still wasn't physically strong enough to handle a meltdown. The 1st visit of the third week I started trying to get her to talk about it, but she was completely resistant. The 2nd visit that week, she spent almost an hour talking about the case in New York when Hotch's SUV exploded and Derek drove an ambulance with a bomb in it. The last five minutes of the session she finally stopped and realized I hadn't been paying attention and was doing paperwork. She asked me why I wasn't listening. I told her I would, when she stopped denying what happened and started talking about it. She went completely still and then got very angry. She told me that she was doing fine and she was talking it out with Derek."

Derek spluttered and started to speak but Carly held up her hand, "I know she wasn't. She then told me that I couldn't say anything until it was time for her to go back to work and by then I would see that she was perfectly fine. Penelope got up and went into my little bathroom. She was in there for about 30 seconds. I could hear her coughing and when she came out her face was puffy and red like she had been crying for the last hour. I went into the bathroom and it was pepper spray, she had sprayed so much it was still lingering in the air, and that's why it looked I had been crying too. When I started to confront her about it, she made some vague threats about my cyber life. She planned it all."

Derek jumped in, "You make her sound like an Unsub we're after, lying and trying to cover her tracks."

Dr. Levin tried to calm Derek down, "I don't mean it in that way at all. Penelope's body couldn't handle it in the beginning and I still agree with that decision. However, after weeks of not talking about it, Penelope thought she could just skip over it and be ok. She had managed to function without thinking about it so far and figured she could continue to do so long term. I threatened that and she needed to protect the bubble she had created for herself. She's not going to be able to keep it up much longer. Her bubble is about to burst and it is going to be, as Penelope says 'uberly messy'. She's becoming more agitated and can't concentrate on keeping up the façade."

"She has been quieter lately," Derek said. "She also startles easier. The other day Clooney barked and she almost came off the couch."

"Have you left her alone much lately?" Carly asked.

"No, she hasn't been alone for more that 15-20 minutes at a time in the past two months," Derek replied.

"That's part of why she has been able to hang on for so long, she's had distractions. I wouldn't be surprised if when you got home she was crumpled on the floor, crying."

At the doctor's words, Derek jumped up out of his chair, "I knew I shouldn't have left her alone."

Carly stood up as well, "Derek, don't run to her now, she needs to break. Time alone, forcing her to listen to what her head is telling her is what she needs. At this point, even when she does hit the wall, we will probably have to push her over it."

Derek's phone rang, breaking the tense silence that had followed Carly's words. "Morgan…What?...She doesn't even eat chili...Ok, just take her to my house…Thanks Will, we'll be there in less than 20.

Derek shut his phone and looked at Hotch and Carly. "It's happening. Pen apparently decided to go to the grocery store and lost it when she couldn't find chili without beans. She started yelling and destroying the display. One employee approached her while another called the cops."

Hotch shook his head, he knew what was coming next, they had seen it before.

Derek nodded at him and then continued, "When the employee touched her to get her attention, she punched him, knocking him out. A customer tried to grab her and she started hitting him. Luckily for us, Will and his partner happened to be the closest unit and got there before any real damage was done. Will explained enough of the situation to keep them from filing charges, but he had to put her in the back of his car because he couldn't get her to calm down. He's taking her to my house; can I run to her now?" Derek asked, almost mocking the doctor.

"Don't be an ass. You need to be as calm as you can be before you walk into that house." Carly told him. "I'm coming with you. I will stay out of the way unless I am needed but this is going to get nasty and you will probably need me."

Derek nodded and Hotch said, "I'll drive…No Derek, you are in no condition to do so and I can get us there faster than Carly can."

"Fine, let's go," Derek said and took off out of Hotch's office.

Hotch and Carly followed, and Carly said, "Will he be able to pull it together? Because that man cannot be anywhere near Penelope like that."

"He will be fine when he is with Penelope. It's instinctual for him to be exactly what she needs at any given moment." Hotch told her. As they passed Emily's desk he told her they had an emergency and he would call and fill them in later. They had to run to get on the elevator because Derek wasn't going to hold it for them.

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When they pulled up to Derek's house he was out of the car and running before the transmission was in park. He could hear Pen screaming and, if it was possible, he moved even faster. He flung his door open and could hear glass shattering. He bolted through the living room where Will was and heard him say, "Watch yourself, she's been throwing things for the past few minutes." Derek kept going, straight into his kitchen, where he immediately had to duck to miss a glass being thrown at the door. The glass sailed into the living room, breaking on the wood floor.

Even in the same room Derek couldn't understand what Pen was screaming. It was more than noises but not quite coherent words. The only words Derek could make out were cuss words. He weaved his way around the worst of the broken mess on his floor. She was cleaning out his cabinets, throwing whatever her hands landed on. She wasn't even aware Derek was in the room. He didn't want to startle her but he needed to get her attention and get her to stop screaming.

"Baby Girl…Baby Girl!...PENELOPE!" The third time, when he yelled louder than her, finally snapped her head around. As if a spell had broken, Penelope looked around and then fell to her knees. "Oh Derek, I am so sorry." She put her head in her hands and started rocking herself back and forth.

Derek dropped down beside her, "Sweetness, it is ok. Smashing things is one of my favorite stress relievers. Nothing is broken that can't be replaced easily. Come on Mama, let's get you out of this glass, you don't even have any shoes on." Derek slid his arms behind her back and helped her to stand. He then dropped one of his arms behind her knees and scooped her up into his arms.

He carried her out of the kitchen, stopping in the living room to kick his boots off so he wouldn't track glass though the house. Penelope had buried her face into his chest and was pressing into him like it could stop the flow of tears Derek knew were fixing to come. He felt her start to shake as they passed through the living room. Derek saw that Will was gone and Hotch was cleaning up the glass that had broken out there. They exchanged a look, Derek's of agony and Hotch's of sympathy and support as Derek continued on to his bedroom.