Disclaimer: Neither of these shows are mine. Wish they were. Alas...
Okay, so here's the lucky number thirteen of this story. Lots and lots of case stuff. Let's buckle down and get Penelope rescued!
After the unsub turned the video camera off, Penelope couldn't stop her tears. She wished she could've told Derek she loved him. Well, finished telling him she loved him. The unsub had smacked her so hard she saw stars before she could finish. Now the last memory of her Derek would have of the two of them was a major fight.
"Dearie, I've never been more excited to see you," the unsub said as he turned around again and grinned maliciously. He strode closer to her and stood in her face. "You are so beautiful. And you have the most beautiful hair. I just love running my hands through it." He put his hands on her scalp and gently began to massage it. For a moment he was gentle, but the moment a whimper sounded, he dug his nails into her skin and his grip became brutal. "What? You don't like that? The feeling of my hands not doing it for you?" She didn't mean to move, but she was shaking so hard that to him it looked like she was shaking her head. He slapped her again. "You don't like the feeling of my hands on you anymore, do you? Whose hands do you like on you?"
Snapping his fingers, he said, "Oh! I know who you want!" He rushed to the table where his tripod was set up and grabbed something. Running back to her, he shoved the paper in her face. It was a shot of Derek on the day when they arrived to New York. It was clear that the unsub was not a fan of him. "It's this boy! I should've known! You think he's so handsome...don't you? Certainly better than me! I never could compare to someone so muscular, so handsome." He hit her once more and this time her vision began to get patchy with black spots.
"Got anything to say?" he hissed down near her face. "Maybe sorry? Are you going to say sorry to the man who loves you?" He ripped the gag from her mouth and hit her once more. "Well? I loosened your tongue for you! Say something!"
With a trembling voice, Penelope whispered, "I - I'm sorry! Please, s-stop!"
"Oh, sweetie," he said in a sickly poisonous voice. He stroked her cheek with his finger and said, "I can never stop. A whore like you makes it impossible for me to stop. You torture me, I torture you. It's the circle of life, sweeting."
Whimpering, Penelope said, "Please...I don't know you! You're sick! Let someone help you!"
"Help me?" he repeated incredulously. "I've asked everyone to help me! God, my father! Neither of them was keen on helping me! When you left me, they abandoned me too! You don't seem to understand that. No one can help me." He shook his head and walked to the crucifix that was hanging over the video camera. She couldn't see his face, but the anger in his voice told her exactly what he looked like. "See, my father used to visit me when regularly. But now he only talks to me when I need him to. Sometimes he doesn't even answer the phone. What kind of father does that? I mean, I'm his son! But then again, if God told him to, he'd kill me. Just like with Abraham and Isaac."
Wanting to wipe away her tears, but unable to, she whispered, "I'm really sorry. Please...let me go. Maybe I can help you?"
He turned back around to face her. She froze. She never should have said anything. He was even more furious. Instead of just slapping her, he punched her. Letting out a yelp, she ended up tasting blood. She'd bit her own lip on accident.
"No one can help me!" he roared. "No one!" Picking up her gag once more, he reinserted it in her mouth and hit her once more. "Certainly not you, you little whore."
XXXXX
SVU Precinct
"Derek, you won't be reentering that room with Franklin," Hotch said as Derek tried making his way to the interrogation room again.
Derek's face was furious. "No!" he hollered. "No! I'm getting that answer out of him! He'll tell me where to find this son of a bitch. If he doesn't, I'll beat it out of him."
"That's exactly why you won't be entering that room again," he said firmly. "We can't have you beating a possible accessory. You cannot threaten the investigation. Beating him won't make him cooperate. We need him to talk to us. And for that I'm sending in Detective Benson. She'll be able to be objective enough to get it out of him." He paused and put his hand on his shoulder. "Morgan, this is the best way to help Penelope. We'll be able to get to her quicker if we don't intimidate Franklin."
A sigh finally came from Derek's lips and he rubbed his forehead. "Fine," he said gruffly. "But I'm going to watch the questioning." He followed Hotch towards the interrogation room. Olivia was getting ready to enter again and she met Derek's eyes before reaching for the doorknob. She nodded to him and seemed to be trying to cheer him up. Nothing would pick up his spirits though. Nothing but getting Penelope back. And then as soon as he did, he would tell her exactly how he felt.
He went up to the glass as Olivia entered and Franklin looked up. A smirk covered his face and he sat back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. "Oh, there you are Detective Benson," he said with false glee. "I was wondering when I'd see you. Are we going to be seeing Agent Jareau too? I figure we will, seeing as you two are so...close."
Derek clenched his fists, wanting nothing more than to punch the smirk off of the reverend's face.
Olivia was holding her own though. "Well, I wouldn't miss this opportunity to meet with you, Father," she said pleasantly. It was clear she was faking the the enthusiasm. "Now, are you going to answer our question from before we had to duck out for a moment? Time is of the essence. If you know of someone who may have seen this person or, say...you yourself knows anything, you had better step forward with it now." She folded her hands on the table and waited with a cocked eyebrow.
Franklin stared back at her and said, "Detective Benson, I don't know anything about this. Really, every time you ask me about it doesn't make my brain magically have information you need."
"You call yourself a man of God," she spat. "You would rather let a killer run around this city, killing and violently raping women, than tell us anything you know. You should really take another look at the Bible."
With a glare, he responded, "Don't try and lecture me on the Word of the Lord. You hardly are in a position to tell me anything."
On the other side of the glass Derek was fuming. "This bastard deserves to burn in hell," he said through gritted teeth.
"Franklin, you might want to tell us something about this," Olivia said, losing her patience very rapidly. "Because there is a very angry FBI agent on the other side of the glass that is not happy with you. So you really do want to remember something."
Franklin laughed. "Ah, Agent Morgan, eh?" he said. "If anyone I know needs to find God, it would be him. He's got a lot of anger raging through him."
"We're not here to talk about Agent Morgan," she said bluntly.
Derek shook his head angrily and started to stalk out of the interrogation room area. "Where are you going Morgan?" Hotch asked.
"To fetch a laptop," he growled.
When he returned he stormed past everyone and into the interrogation room. He slammed the computer down and glared at Franklin. "Now listen to me you, son of a bitch! Watch this and then tell me you don't know anything!" He pressed the 'play' button more forcefully than he should have, but the sound of the unsub's voice and then the weeping of Penelope filled the room. The sound of it was torture to Derek's ears, but he forced himself to listen to it. Franklin had to hear it. The video finished and Derek shut the computer. He glared at Franklin.
The pastor was now pale faced and sweating. Derek leaned in closer to his face and hissed, "Now...tell us what you know!"
Franklin sat still for a moment with a frightened look on his face before rising to his feet. "Agent Morgan, I know nothing," he snapped. "Now, since I'm not under arrest, I'm free to leave whenever I want and -"
Before he could finish, Derek had grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed him up against the wall and pressed his arm against his collarbone, keeping him locked in place. "Listen to me! Tell us what you know! That bastard has Penelope and if you -"
"Morgan! Enough!" Hotch and Olivia both grabbed Derek by the shoulders and pulled him backwards from Franklin to keep him from strangling him.
"Let me go! He knows something!" Derek roared as he was pulled from the room.
As soon as he was pulled out of the room, Hotch's face turned dead serious and furious. "Go cool down, Morgan," he thundered. "You are not to go within fifty feet of Andrew Franklin. We've got a lot of damage control to take care of, so get out of here and go get a cup of coffee."
Furious, Derek didn't respond. All he did was stalk out of the room. He would find out one way or another how Father Franklin was connected.
XXXXX
JJ had only heard about how awful Morgan's outburst had been. And gossip wasn't the only thing she'd heard. She'd heard much of it just being out in the center of the precinct. He had been that loud. Currently she was waiting for Kevin Lynch to arrive to start work on finding the new location of the videos. She was sitting on a bench outside the elevators with her head in her hands. Her best friend was taken and in the hands of a crazy unsub with a vendetta against red heads. The last words she'd been allowed to speak were for the team and the ones she'd said to JJ were that she would find love again.
"How are you holding up?"
She looked up to see Olivia holding two cups of coffee. Holding out one of the cups for JJ to take, she sat down next to her. "Thank you," JJ murmured, taking a sip of the steaming liquid. She let it warm her insides until she felt slightly better. "You know, I can't figure out how this could have happened to her. Penelope is one of the kindest people in the world. How come this happened to her? Why?"
"You'll go crazy asking yourself that question," Olivia said tenderly. "There are no answers to it. The only thing you can do is work to get her back. Which you will. And with Derek on the job, my guess is it will happen sooner rather than later."
"I'm just worried about the downward spiral he's on right now," JJ admitted. "I only heard about it, but you saw what he did to Franklin. He could have broken his collar bone. There's no way we're escaping a law suit...unless of course we find out he was an accessory."
"We'll figure it out," she reassured her. Taking JJ's hand, she gave it a squeeze and added, "And Penelope will be back safe with Derek. Right where she belongs."