Sorry for the delayed update. I try to get one out once a week. Hope you all enjoy! Thanks to all who have reviewed so far, its such an encouragement!

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or any characters therein.

Penelope rubbed her eyes, willing them to stay open. She had finished the names on her list of contacts. All but one on her list responded and were willing to come in the next morning for questioning.

The rest of the team gradually completed their lists and met back up in the hotel lobby. Hotch spoke first, "From the looks of it we have managed to successfully contact and bring in all but two of our group members as well as related staff. There'll be nothing further. Get some rest. I want everyone back at the college at 0730 for a briefing, then interviews to begin at 0800. Goodnight, everyone."

Emily and J.J. walked toward the elevators to head to the room the two of them shared with Penelope. Rossi and Reid stepped outside for some fresh air before heading up themselves.

Penelope sat in the lobby of the hotel staring into nothing, exhausted beyond words. Derek sat down in the chair beside her.

"I think it's past your bed time, baby girl." Derek spoke softly as he tugged on the braid of her hair.

Penelope looked into his eyes with such seriousness it caught him off guard.

"How do you do it?" she whispered.

"Do what?"

"Hold on to your innocence, to continue to trust other people, to see any good at all?" A tear ran down Penelope's face as she continued.

"I've always tried to find the best in people. I thought if I could look into a criminal's past I could find an explanation for their behavior. I could find something that made me believe that the evil things they did were only done because such evil had been done to them. But it didn't make me feel better. Someone is stabbing and strangling innocent women. Women who've already been abused in the past."

Penelope looked hard into his eyes. "I feel nothing for this unsub, Derek. Nothing but anger and rage. How do you do it? How do you not want to kill these people when you come face to face with them in an interrogation room? How do you go out into the world and trust another human being with your life after cases like this."

Derek let out a deep sigh and grabbed her hand in a tight grip. "Your eyes cannot unsee the brutality of these cases. Your hands cannot unfeel the coldness of a body after death. It changes people, Penelope. It's changing you. But it doesn't have to turn you into a calloused shell of a human being. You take that rage, that anger, and you harness it. Use it to interrogate suspects, use it to give compassion to family members who are hurting, use it to hack into computer systems and find valuable information that can help solve a case."

He held her cheek with his hand. "Baby girl, this is normal. You're doing an amazing job, you just have to go back to your world of pink fuzzy pens and cute kittens sometimes to erase the other images you see."

She smiled as she put turned her head to kiss his palm. "Is that why I found a fuzzy pen on your desk?"

Derek broke out into a smile. "Guilty. Though I'd say I kept that on my desk for more reasons than you think."

Penelope smiled at him. "You know, as I was packing my things a few days ago, I told myself that this was my opportunity to show you how strong I was. I wanted to prove to you that I could hold my own and contribute like J.J. or Emily. No more codependent, gullible, Penelope Garcia."

"Penelope, you have nothing to prove to me. I've always known you could take care of yourself, and you've always been more than a technical analyst to this team. But being strong doesn't mean you can't let people take care of you, it doesn't mean you have to do this all alone."

After a few minutes of silence Penelope stood up and spoke quietly. "We should get to bed, my love. Thank you for the sweet words." She stood on her toes and hugged him.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and breathed in her scent. He pulled back and looked at her tired eyes. "How come you haven't been wearing your glasses?"

"Occupational hazard. When I was in physical training I started wearing contacts. The instructors always mentioned that contacts were better when working in the field. You know, in case I have to chase a bad guy."

Derek brushed his hands where her glasses usually covered her face. "I miss them. They're just…you." He smiled shyly.

Derek heard a voice from behind. "Is this what you would define as pillow talk?"

"It meant something else when I was young." Rossi winked as he and Reid passed through the lobby.

Penelope blushed as she excused herself to her room.

Derek watched her quickly enter the elevator. Rossi looked at him with a grin. "I hope we weren't interrupting anything."

Derek shook his head.

Rossi leaned in, his voice taking on a fatherly tone. "I will say this. If you're going to make a move, don't do it in the middle of a murder investigation. The girl deserves more than that."

"Listen Rossi, I don't know what you think is going on between us but I assure you…"

He put his hands up. "I'm sorry, forget I said anything."

Reid spoke up. "I disagree to your previous advice. Delay is the deadliest form of denial. I was reading in the Modern Psychologist Journal that the number of people engaged in workplace romances rose from 15% to 40% in the last 5 years. It's said that common similarities between two coworkers and not initial physical attraction was the reasoning for the start of such relationships. Most interesting though was the percentage of people who were attracted to coworkers and admitted to thinking about pursuing a relationship with them only to keep the relationship on a shallow level by feeding them occasional compliments and flirting. This ensures that the pursuant is built up by the response they receive from showing interest in the other party, but allows them to keep the relationship platonic because the responder has no belief that the relationship could be anything but purely friendship."

Morgan shook his head, not meeting Reid's gaze. "I'm going to bed. I don't want to hear any more about this. My relationship with Garcia is no one's business but my own. Are we clear?"

Rossi and Reid nodded their heads as Morgan quickly walked toward the elevators.

Rossi patted him on the back. "You're a genius, Reid."

"That's what they tell me." He smiled as the both headed upstairs themselves.

The team was back at the college early the next morning. Everyone was sitting in a private conference room waiting for Hotch to give instruction. Noticeably tired and withdrawn were Morgan and Garcia. This was not lost on the rest of the team.

Hotch came in the room holding a stack of files.

"Garcia, thank you for staying up a little later last night and printing out background information for today's interviews."

Hotch placed a stack of folders in front of J.J., Emily, and Penelope.

"We're going to do something a little different this time. I want all of our interviews to be conducted by J.J., Prentiss, or Garcia."

Garcia wrung her hands nervously. The men in the room looked surprised at Hotch's decision.

"We have over twenty people to interview and they all have a history of victimization by domestic violence. Each of them have been abused by someone close to them. They need comfort and understanding, they need someone who will not intimidate them. I don't believe they will open up to anyone but another woman. We've got audio and video feed set up in each interview room. Rossi, I want you observing interview's with Prentiss. I will be watching interviews with J.J. And Reid, I need you and Morgan to watch Garcia. We start with high priority first. That means Carla Brown, Mara Lewis, and Joseph Reitz. Let's get started."

Prentiss looked across the desk at Mara Lewis. She looked calm and composed.

"Ms. Lewis, can you tell me how long you knew the victims prior to their deaths?"

Mara looked up and stared into nothing, as if trying to recall the details.

"I met all three women around the same time. A couple years ago I started doing research for my dissertation. I was intrigued by families with history of domestic violence and how it affected children in the home. I wanted to look at the racial implications. Specifically violence in bi-racial homes and how that affected the relationships sought by the affected child later in life. I decided the best way to do this was to start a support group of sorts. What better way to talk to women than to create a safe environment to do so."

Prentiss interrupted her, "Were all of these women aware at the time that this support group was created for the purpose of research?"

"Not at the time, no. We figured we'd get more of an honest response if they were unaware."

Prentiss questioned, "We?"

"Carla, and I. She was also a doctoral student. Carla was researching as well, but her emphasis was on domestic violence and how it affects the victim's psychological state in the long term. Both of us had also been in relationships of domestic violence and felt we could benefit the women by providing a place to share and heal."

Prentiss arched an eyebrow, "All while prodding them for information for your pet project."

"We cared about those women, they weren't just subjects in a study. They were like sisters to us."

Prentiss leaned in closer, "If they were like sisters to you then why didn't you or Carla contact the police after members of your group started being systematically murdered?"

Mara looked down at her hands. "I don't know. We were scared. It was like one of our abusers was out to get us. You spend years trying to heal, but when violence tracks you down again you crumble, just like before, and hide, hoping it goes away."

"Ms. Lewis, where were you on the night of each of the murders?"

"I was here, at the college. Mr. Reitz can corroborate. I log all of my work hours, including dissertation research hours in his office."

"One more question, Ms. Lewis and then you can take a break. Someone must have hurt you very badly to inspire you to dedicate your life's research to the effects of domestic violence on children. Was it your father?"

Mara turned from calm to enraged. She looked at Prentiss with malice. "How dare you talk about my father? You know nothing about him."

Prentiss leaned in once more. "So it was your mother…"

Mara calmed herself, took a deep breath, and plastered a small smile on her face. "I think I'd like to take that break now."

Rossi looked at Prentiss. "Well, if that's not implicating yourself, I don't know what is."

Prentiss looked toward the interview room. "I'm quite sure of her involvement at this point. She either knows something she isn't telling us, or she's just a hard woman with no empathy using these women to get what she wants. Maybe she didn't come to the police because she was afraid she'd look guilty?"

Rossi spoke, "Let's see if her alibi checks out. I also think we'll get more questions answered after we talk to all of the members of the group. Until then, I don't want her leaving this building."

Penelope walked into the interview room nervously. She sat down and took a deep breath.

"Ms. Brown, my name is Penelope Garcia, special agent with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few questions about a support group that you and Mara Lewis have been leading over the last two years."

Carla looked at Penelope with a smirk on her face. No nervousness or fear, something akin to amusement.

"I was hoping I'd get to talk to you." She said.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're her, right? The tech girl who's dating the fine looking agent that was here yesterday?"

Penelope kept a straight face as the tension mounted in her body. "Ms. Brown, the last time I checked you were here to be interviewed because three women you claim to be close to have been brutally murdered. I suggest you keep the smirk off your face and your nose out of my personal business, are we clear?"

Carla arched an eyebrow. "Yes, ma'am."

"I've already gathered some basic information about you and your work from interviews already conducted by my colleagues, so I'll get right to the point. In the weeks leading to her death, Sarah Roberts was reported to have stopped attending meetings due to an altercation with other women in the group. Do you know anything about that?"

Penelope could hear Carla's foot tap against the floor in nervousness. "She didn't like the direction we were taking the group. We started a new kind of therapy, a means to put the past to rest and deal with harbored feelings toward our abusers."

"What kind of new therapy are we talking here?"

"We decided that each member of the support group needed to engage in recovered memory therapy."

Penelope narrowed her eyes in anger. "You made these women relive the most horrific abuses in their lives? To what end?"

"You can't heal from pain and move on unless you've brought the pain back to memory. But we also encouraged our members to participate in another type of therapy. Role-playing. We encouraged the women to write or speak aloud the things they wanted to do to the people that hurt them. The ways they wanted those people to suffer."

Penelope's stomach tightened in sickness. "Pain that these women spent years trying to forget are brought back up, and then you think you're doing them a favor by having them fantasize about committing violent acts themselves?"

"A lot of the women talked about how much it helped them."

"But it didn't help Sarah, did it?"

"Sarah was different. She had a few other women who followed suit. They were different than the rest of the group. They weren't your typical 'battered wives'."

"Excuse me?"

"You know the type. Codependent, naïve, weak, unable to make decisions on their own, and always putting themselves at fault."

Penelope shook her head. "So they didn't fit into your little plan did they? Couldn't have women with a mind of their own in the group, could you? What does your research tell you now, Ms. Brown?"

Carla smirked once more, but the question was met by eerie silence.

As Morgan was watching the interchange he couldn't help but be impressed at Penelope's interrogation skills. She didn't seem unnerved by this woman at all. He was sure that Carla and Mara had something to do with the murders, but all they had was circumstantial evidence, nothing solid to link them to the crime scene.

As he continued to observe the interview he was tapped on the shoulder from behind. Hotch spoke quietly. "There's been another murder. Body was found at an apartment building only a few miles from here. Victim hasn't been identified yet, but the victimology matches our unsub. I need you to assign the rest of Garcia's interviews to J.J. or Prentiss. We're going to need her at the ready to comb through evidence. You and I are heading to the crime scene."

Garcia had been pulled from the interview room was walking in between Morgan and Hotch as details of a new murder were explained to her. They were escorting her to her makeshift office before they headed to the new crime scene.

She spoke quietly. "Do we have to start over now? All of our potential suspects have been at the college all morning."

Hotch answered, "We don't know yet, Garcia. The crime scene will be able to tell us a lot more. Let's hope the unsub has slipped up and made a mistake. We still haven't ruled out the possibility of there being an accomplice. So until we get back, no one being interviewed is allowed to leave without direct order from me."

Derek looked at Hotch. They both shared a look of knowing. Knowing that the crime scene they were about to walk into would be far worse than those before.